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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313042">The One With Eddie's New Roommate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak'>tempestbreak</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Creepy Patrick Hockstetter, Eventual Smut, Friends AU, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Minor Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Patrick Hockstetter is His Own Warning, Rimming, Roommates, Sitcom, Switching</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:06:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Richie opens the door to his apartment well past midnight after a long day of rehearsal, he expects it to be dark inside but for the oven light.</p><p>What he <em>doesn’t</em> expect is to see his roommate getting absolutely railed on his Barcalounger by a strange man with a goatee.</p><p>“R-Richie!!” Eddie exclaims, his eyes flying wide.</p><p>“Aw, hell!” the stranger exclaims.</p><p>“Oh, no!” Richie exclaims, to complete the trifecta of idiotic exclamations, and slams the door shut.</p><p>--</p><p><em>Or</em>: Richie moves out. Eddie's new roommate may or may not be a serial killer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>294</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The One Where Richie Moves Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/gifts">camerasparring</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936517">The One With the Prom Video</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring">camerasparring</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this fic was a request by @camerasparring!</p><p>this takes place broadly in the same universe as their "the one with the prom video," but with a different getting together story for reddie. it's based on the run of episodes in friends s2 where joey moves out and chandler gets a new roommate (coincidentally named eddie lol), but in this universe it's patrick. it was hard trying to translate patrick hockstetter into a sitcom setting, but here we are!</p><p>the fic is complete and will update on tuesdays.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Richie opens the door to his apartment well past midnight after a long day of rehearsal, he expects it to be dark inside but for the oven light.</p><p>He expects to have to pick his way across the floor, hoping but failing to avoid catching the stools at the breakfast bar with his backpack strap. He expects Eddie to be asleep but to still somehow get a scolding from a barefoot, mussy-haired version of his roommate while he’s trying to brush his teeth about being too loud when grown-ups are <em>trying to sleep, Richie</em>.</p><p>What he <em>doesn’t </em>expect is to see said roommate getting absolutely railed on his Barcalounger by a strange man with a goatee.</p><p>“R-Richie!!” Eddie exclaims, his eyes flying wide. He starts to scramble to right himself, his bare, glistening torso twisting against the damp leather, shiny with sweat.</p><p>“Aw, hell!” the stranger exclaims.</p><p>“Oh, no!” Richie exclaims, to complete the trifecta of idiotic exclamations, and slams the door shut.</p><p>For a few, heart-pounding seconds, he sags against it. He draws a hand down his slack jaw, trying to dispel the image of a goatee’d stranger holding up one of Eddie’s legs by the ankle so he can split him open. Apparently with great skill, if the moans Eddie’d been letting out were anything to go by.</p><p>And then he hears the obvious sounds of movement on the other side, voices talking quietly, urgently. Eddie is kicking the dude out. He’s kicking the dude out.</p><p>Oh god, Richie ruined a date for Eddie.</p><p>The thought occurs with a small, sadistic lick of self-satisfaction… followed almost immediately by a squash of cold realism.</p><p>“He’s probably not kicking him out, idiot. They’re probably just moving to the bedroom,” Richie tells himself with a grim sigh. “You don’t get plowed like a field and tell the farmer to leave halfway through.”</p><p>Then he hears what sounds like footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, and his heart leaps back into his throat.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>, I gotta get the hell out of here.” </p><p>He shoves himself off the door and scrambles across the hall to Stan and Mike’s, not even bothering to knock before he fumbles the knob open and falls into the apartment.</p><p>It’s dark. Utterly quiet. Nary a goatee’d stranger in sight.</p><p>“See, <em>this </em>is what I was talking about,” Richie says under his breath. </p><p>Then, through the door, he hears the sound of a latch, and then hushed voices in the hall. Unable to stop himself, he plasters his chest to the back of the door so he can stare creepily through the peephole.</p><p>“The creephole is what I call it,” he mutters, his glasses smushed against his face.</p><p>As expected, it’s Eddie and Goatee McFucksalot. Eddie is looking up and down the hallway, muttering something to the guy, who is just standing there, running his hands through his hair.</p><p>“—sure?” the guy’s asking. “I don’t even think he’s here anymore.”</p><p>“’Course I’m sure,” Eddie hisses. He glances toward Stan and Mike’s door, and Richie <em>very </em>carefully reaches for the lock on the doorknob. “That was— I didn’t know he’d be coming back so soon, all right? Otherwise I would never—”</p><p>“Thought you said he didn’t care.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, there’s a difference between supporting your gay best friend and seeing him getting fucked in the goddamn living room, <em>isn’t there, Charles</em>?”</p><p>“Oh, so ya <em>do </em>know my name,” ‘Charles’ quips with an unperturbed grin that makes Richie wanna punch him. Instead, he glares through the creephole as ‘Charles’ shrugs, giving an easy smile as he fixes his tie. “’Swhy I live alone. Freedom’s great, don’t have to worry about gay-hating roommates…”</p><p>“He doesn’t hate gays, all right?” Eddie’s tone is hard, direct, before his head starts to list to the side. “He’s just… a little weird about it…”</p><p>That pangs right in Richie’s chest, steals the breath from his lungs. Ugh, he <em>knew </em>Eddie had picked up on that, on how Richie clams up every time Eddie talks about having a date.</p><p>“Silver lining, Richard,” he whispers to himself, still creeping. “At least he has no clue how much <em>you </em>wanna be the one fucking him in said living room…” </p><p>“Whatever you say,” Charles replies agreeably. “Maybe next time I see you— Oh, come on, sweetheart,” he chides, and Richie can’t see Eddie’s expression but he assumes Eddie gave him one of his usual severe looks. “Don’t look at me like that when I <em>know </em>you were just on the verge of number three for the night. You’re so <em>easy</em>, you know that…”</p><p>And Eddie shoves at him, says <em>something</em>, but Richie can’t hear it over the roaring in his ears, the swoop in his stomach, the <em>loudness </em>of the image of Eddie draped over the Barcalounger, one leg hoisted in the air so <em>Charles </em>can ream him just oh-so-right.</p><p>Richie can no longer creep. He falls away from the door and rubs at his eyes behind his glasses, letting his backpack fall to the floor where Stan will certainly threaten to set it on fire in the morning.</p><p>He can’t bear to go back to his and Eddie’s. Not when he knows Eddie’s still awake, still mortified, still…</p><p>...God, probably still open, still <em>wet</em>…</p><p>Richie clenches his eyes shut. He shivers.</p><p>In a few swift motions, he shucks off his jacket, kicks off his shoes, and throws himself on Stan and Mike’s couch. He doesn’t bother with the rest of his clothes, barely remembers to toss his glasses on the coffee table before burying his face in the throw pillow.</p><p>Eddie…</p><p>Eddie was really fucking enjoying it, huh... </p><p>His stomach twists, a sickly combination of embarrassment, shame, and arousal. He tries to ignore how he’s half-hard in his ratty jeans, pressed hard into the couch cushions. Tries even harder to ignore how this is far from the first time he’s gotten hard thinking about Eddie like that.</p><p>Now that he’s <em>seen </em>Eddie like that, though—flushed down to his chest, a sheen of sweat sparkling on his skin, dick shiny and hard bouncing against his abdomen…</p><p>Oh god, Eddie’s <em>dick</em>. He’s seen Eddie’s <em>dick</em>—</p><p>
  <em>Tap, tap.</em>
</p><p>He freezes. Listens. His pulse is racing.</p><p><em>Tap, tap. </em>It’s the ghost of a knock on the door, followed by the barest whisper of Eddie’s voice: “Richie…?” </p><p>Richie stays completely still. Silent. He waits, his heart in his throat.</p><p>After several long, frozen moments, he thinks he hears a sigh, followed by footsteps and the sound of the door closing across the hall.</p><p>He breathes a sigh of relief and rolls over onto his back, staring up at the black ceiling. Even in the blank darkness, he can still see the outline of Eddie’s thighs held open in the living room, <em>their </em>living room. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to look Eddie in the eyes sitting in that chair ever again. How are they supposed to ironically watch <em>Baywatch </em>together now?</p><p>And worst of all, his dick hasn’t gotten any softer.</p><p>“Maybe Charles McFucksalot was onto something with that whole ‘living alone’ thing,” he grumbles, and flings an arm over his eyes to try to sleep.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Richie wakes up to the sensation of Stan flicking him hard in the shell of his ear. He yelps, swats at him, and then blinks blearily up at his worst friend.</p><p>“The hell are you doing?” he grumbles.</p><p>“Exercising my right to defend my home,” Stan replies dryly. “You want coffee?”</p><p>“Time is it?”</p><p>“Around six.”</p><p>Richie lets his eyelids slam back shut. “Ughh… but that’s, like, the <em>worst </em>possible time for it to be, Stan<em>ley</em>…”</p><p>“And why is that.”</p><p>The fact that Stanley does not know this is only further evidence that he’s a servobot in human skin. “Too early for me to wanna wake up,” Richie groans, turning his face back into the pillow, “too late for me to go back to sleep…”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>The sound of Stanley’s (infinitely) better half padding out from their shared bedroom is somewhat of a relief to Richie’s roughshod brain. “What’s this?”</p><p>“A foundling left on our couch,” Stan says, straightening and abandoning Richie to the couch and the rapidly growing realization that he actually will not be going back to sleep right away. “We need to start locking our door. Maybe then at least it’ll only be left on the doorstep.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>When Richie finally makes it back across the hall, he opens the door tentatively. The light is on in the kitchen, and the clink of spoon on porcelain stops as Richie slides inside.</p><p>Eddie is sitting at the breakfast bar eating his traditional, flavorless oatmeal with bananas and no brown sugar. His eyes go wide and caught when Richie sheepishly appears.</p><p>“Uh, hey,” Richie tries with a halfhearted smile, closing the door behind him. </p><p>“Hey…”</p><p>Skin prickling, Richie passes him to drop his backpack onto the living room couch. He can’t stop his eyes being drawn to Eddie’s recliner, sitting innocuously next to Richie’s. From the sheen of the beige leather and the vague, sharp scent of cleaner, it looks like it’s been rubbed down with a disinfecting wipe or something, though that’s nothing unusual for Eddie. He does that at least once a week.</p><p>Oh, god, does that mean—</p><p>“So, uh.” </p><p>Eddie’s voice nearly makes Richie jump. Richie’s eyes snap to him, but Eddie hasn’t turned; he’s still hunched over his bowl.</p><p>“Sorry,” he says, “about, uh…”</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Richie says, like he’s only just remembering. He kicks himself. What a fucking stupid defense mechanism, playing dumb when he clearly just slept at Stan and Mike’s last night <em>because of...</em></p><p>Eddie’s eyebrows twitch, as if he wants to yell at Richie already. It’s fair; Richie wants to yell at Richie already, too. “Yeah,” he says, glaring at his oatmeal now, his cheeks red. “I just… I didn’t know you’d be home so early last night.”</p><p>Richie frowns briefly. One in the morning ain’t early, in his book. Sure, he’s often out that late on Thursdays, but…</p><p>Whatever, it’s not worth arguing about. Not if he can make sure they never speak of this again.</p><p>“Got done everything we needed to get done,” he says breezily, sweeping past Eddie to grab his open box of Frosted Flakes from the top of the fridge. They’ve been going stale for about a week by now, just the way Richie likes ’em.</p><p>He can feel Eddie’s eyes on him as he pours himself a bowl and douses it with the merest splash of milk. He can feel Eddie’s frustration with his eating habits—with his <em>living </em>habits—the same way he’s felt it every day since Eddie moved in.</p><p>But unlike every other day since Eddie moved in, today it just makes Richie feel exhausted.</p><p>“Don’t drown ’em,” Eddie grumbles sarcastically.</p><p>And Richie knows it’s supposed to be a joke. It’s supposed to be a joke building on an entire foundation of jokes since they’ve become roommates. But today it doesn’t sit right. Today it sends cracks spiderwebbing through that foundation. Today it threatens to topple over the whole thing.</p><p>
  <em>It’s not supposed to be stale, Richie. A serving size is only one cup, not a whole popcorn bowl, Richie. The milk is the only almost healthy thing about eating that shit, Richie, so of course it’s the one thing you <span class="u">don’t</span> overdo, Richie.</em>
</p><p>It’s like everything Richie does is wrong. Eating, sleeping, even coming home from work when all he wants is to sleep in his own damn bed. But who was the one who opened his doors when Eddie left his wife? Who was the one who skipped work to help Eddie move his shit, set up his stupidly ancient twin bed from childhood? Who was the one who nearly bit his own tongue off when Eddie told all of them that he was seeing someone new, <em>a man</em>, because he could barely stop himself from screaming in shock, in joy, in horror at the realization that even though Eddie was gay he clearly didn’t want Richie?</p><p>“You know,” Richie says, leaning against the countertop and bringing the bowl to his chin, “I’m not sure in what world coming home at one A.M. is <em>early</em>.”</p><p>He doesn’t look at Eddie as he chews, but he knows Eddie is staring at him still. Is he just shocked that Richie’s finally standing up for himself?</p><p>“I mean, you have a bedroom, right?” he goes on, chuckling a little more bitterly than he means to. “Or doesn’t Charles van Goatee-Face live alone? Why don’t you go—”</p><p>Richie realizes his mistake. His breath catches. He cuts himself off with a spoonful of sugar to the face but the damage is done. The medicine is not gonna go down smooth.</p><p>“Why the fuck do you know that.”</p><p>Richie closes his eyes, his heart pounding. He shovels in more Frosted Flakes but they turn to ash in his mouth.</p><p>“Richie,” Eddie says, his voice sharp, “why the fuck do you know Charles lives alone? Why the fuck do you know his name is <em>Charles</em>?”</p><p>Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.</p><p>“Good guess?” he tries weakly.</p><p>Eddie’s hand slams down on the tile countertop, his eyes flashing. “Were you <em>spying </em>on us!?”</p><p>“O-oh, please!” Richie returns, heat creeping up his neck. “I’d hardly call it spying, when you were— in the <em>living room</em>, a-and then the hallway—”</p><p>“I didn’t know you were gonna be home so early!” Eddie shouts again.</p><p>“I <em>wasn’t </em>home early. What do <em>you </em>call one in the morning, Eds? Fucking teatime?”</p><p>“I call it <em>normal </em>for you!” Eddie returns, gritting his teeth. “Average! And you said you’d be home late. I think I can be excused for assuming when you said ‘late’ you meant <em>relatively </em>late rather than <em>absolutely </em>late.”</p><p>Richie can’t— Fuck, he can barely think. He lets his bowl fall to the counter with a clatter, spoon still sticking out of his mouth.</p><p>“You know, I live here, too,” Eddie goes on, clearly building up a head of steam. His hand is starting to slice through the air. “I can have someone over if I want. That’s what most twenty-somethings do, Richie, that’s <em>normal</em>, just because <em>you—</em>”</p><p>“Oh, great, so we’re gonna attack my dating record, too, huh?” Richie cuts in, nodding sharply as he twirls the spoon in the air. “Cool, I was hoping we would. You know, I haven’t brought anyone back because I didn’t want to make <em>you </em>uncomfortable, Eds, and even if I did, I wouldn’t fuck them in the living room. Call me crazy, but—”</p><p>
  <em>“I didn’t know you were gonna be home so early!” </em>
</p><p><em>“I </em>–<em> wasn’t </em>–<em> home </em>–<em> early.”</em></p><p>Unable to continue to glare at Eddie, Richie jerks his head to the side, shoving the spoon in his mouth to suck it clean. Still avoiding Eddie’s gaze, he reaches for the silverware drawer and shoves the spoon back inside.</p><p>“Ahh<em>-ahh</em>!?”</p><p>The noise Eddie wrings out of his throat is more strangled and horrified than Richie has heard in a long time. He cocks an eyebrow in his direction, defiant. “What?”</p><p>“You—” Eddie’s face is red, nearly purpling with uncomprehending rage. “You licked—” He gestures to Richie’s face. “—and you put—” And to the drawer. “You licked and you put!” he finishes, hands flying in the air.</p><p>Richie crosses his arms and looks stubbornly back at him. “Yeah, so what?”</p><p>Eddie’s expression contorts even further. “So it’s <em>disgusting</em>, that’s what,” he answers through gritted teeth. “You can’t just—”</p><p>“I’m gonna use that spoon later, anyway,” Richie says with a shrug. He takes his bowl from the counter and briefly considers licking it like a dog and putting it back in the cupboard, but he figures that would be a bridge too far. He sets it in the sink and steps away, knowing that just the fact that he didn’t immediately wash it is enough to irk Eddie further.</p><p>“<em>How</em>?” Eddie demands, his hands splayed on the countertop, tendons taut. “<em>How</em> will you know what spoon you licked, Richie? All our spoons look the same!”</p><p>“Yeah, thanks to you,” Richie retorts. “My system worked perfectly before you came along, with your <em>matching silverware…</em>” He waggles his fingers sarcastically.</p><p>“Oh, yes, what a <em>hardship</em>,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “Having forks that actually <em>stack</em>, knives that aren’t <em>rusty</em>…”</p><p>“Right, thank you <em>sooo </em>much, Henry Higgins, for plucking me from poverty. Oi’m a propah English lady now, ain’t I?”</p><p>Unable to continue glaring at Eddie, Richie whirls to the fridge. He jerks the door open, condiments rattling, and pulls out the carton of Tropicana.</p><p>No pulp. Because that’s how Eddie likes it. And everything has to be how <em>Eddie </em>likes it. Even the way a stranger holds his ankle in the air to hit him just right—</p><p>Heat licks up his spine. He wants it to be rage.</p><p>He’s gonna make it rage.</p><p>“This juice fucking sucks,” Richie announces, slamming it down on the counter. A drop slops out and hits him on the cheek; his face feels so hot he wouldn’t be surprised if it evaporated off with a sizzle.</p><p>“No, it doesn’t,” Eddie bites back immediately, because of course he does. Eddie doesn’t cow in the face of anger; he matches it. He always has. It’s just one more of the many reasons Richie—</p><p>“It does. Where’s the pulp? Where’s the fuckin’ pulp? When’s the last time you ate an orange without—” </p><p>“It doesn’t need pulp; it’s fortified with vitamin D, you fuck!”</p><p>“Yeah, well, <em>you</em> were being fortified with vitamin D <em>last night</em>!”</p><p>It’s not Richie’s finest hour, for sure, and Eddie’s face goes so red that Richie’s surprised he doesn’t just combust on the spot. His eyes are practically flaming embers as Richie grabs the juice box and throws it back into the fridge.</p><p>“In the living room!” he cries again, slamming the door so hard their trashy Atlantic City bottle opener magnet topples to the linoleum floor. “<em>My </em>living room!”</p><p>“Hey, I pay rent. It’s my living room, too!”</p><p>“Yeah, well— maybe it shouldn’t be!”</p><p>The words hang in the air. They both freeze, wide-eyed; neither wants to follow that thread.</p><p>But follow it they must.</p><p>“What the hell does <em>that </em>mean,” Eddie asks, and his voice is thick. He’s offended. No, worse than that: he’s <em>hurt</em>.</p><p>Richie swallows hard. His heart is truly pounding now. He and Eddie can rail at each other all day long—and they often do—but when Eddie sounds like <em>that</em>, when Eddie looks like <em>that</em>, Richie’s throat wants to close up like he’s allergic to hurting him.</p><p>“What does that mean, Richie?” Eddie asks again, an edge creeping in. The lines of his face are hard. “You want me to move out?”</p><p>“No!” Richie bursts, shaking his head vehemently. “No, no, I—” He sighs, bowing his head. His glasses fall down his nose and he pushes them back up. “I… I think I meant me.”</p><p>There’s a heavy thud, and when Richie looks up, Eddie’s sat bodily back down on the stool. He’s staring at Richie, lips parted, eyes wide and uncomprehending. “<em>You’re </em>moving out?” he asks, voice going creaky.</p><p>Richie rubs at his arm. “I dunno, maybe. It kinda— My castmate’s got a new place and needs to sublet, and I—”</p><p>“That’s bullshit.”</p><p>Richie jerks his head back and frowns. “It’s not bullshit, she really does need to—”</p><p>“Whatever. I just wish you wouldn’t fucking <em>lie </em>to me, Richie.”</p><p>“I’m not lying, she’s moving closer to work, and—”</p><p>Eddie’s hand slices down through the air like a guillotine. “All right, I have to know,” he says decisively. “Is this because of the gay thing?”</p><p>“Oh my god,” Richie groans helplessly. He spins his torso away from Eddie, letting his arms flail in exasperation.</p><p>“Because if it’s because of the gay thing, I hope you know that I—”</p><p>“It’s not,” Richie cuts in angrily. “Eds, you know I don’t give a shit about that. I’m— I’m <em>happy</em> that you’re gay—”</p><p>“Oh, shut the hell up, don’t fucking patronize me—”</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em>, I really am happy about it, <em>believe </em>me—”</p><p>“If this is some half-assed joke about how ‘gay’ <em>really </em>means ‘happy,’ you can fucking save it, Richie. I’ve heard it before, I knew you in middle school—”</p><p>“It’s—! <em>No</em>, all right!?” </p><p>Richie’s voice booms in the apartment, exploding from his chest with far more force than he intended. It clearly takes Eddie aback, his teeth clicking shut.</p><p>They stare at each other, both clearly a little shocked.</p><p>And Richie doesn’t know how to cover it, how to explain why that was his final straw. If there was ever a time to fully explain himself, to <em>confess</em>, it would be here. It would be now.</p><p>“It’s… That’s not what it is,” Richie mutters, looking down. He shoves his glasses up his nose, kicking his foot against the shitty, stained linoleum. The spot that Eddie scrubbed endlessly when he first moved in but only succeeded in scratching off the smooth top layer.</p><p>“...Okay,” he hears Eddie say warily.</p><p>Richie takes a deep breath. </p><p>Now or never. Probably. </p><p>“I’m…”</p><p>He swallows. Shoves his fingers into his clenched-shut eyelids. Sighs.</p><p>“...gonna go for a walk, I think.”</p><p>Never it is.</p><p>Eddie doesn’t say anything as Richie gathers his jacket, his keys. He just stands there, in the living room, arms crossed and shoulders hunched like he’s protecting himself. Richie hates that he looks like that right now. Hates that he could ever think that Richie would want him to look like that. Defensive. Defiant. Scared.</p><p>Hates more than anything else that he could so easily fix it.</p><p>But he can’t bring himself to say the words.</p><p>“Just need some time,” he says instead. “I’ll be back later.”</p><p>“Absolutely or relatively?” Eddie returns tentatively.</p><p>The joke is weak, but still Richie chuckles. He fiddles with the chain lock for a moment, feeling the tug in his heart, the thread knotted around it that Eddie holds the other end of. He could turn around, could put on a big grin and challenge Eddie to a round of <em>Street Fighter II Turbo</em> on the SNES that is their most prized possession so they could settle this disagreement the way they have every other one: like men. Like boys.</p><p>Instead he draws his jacket around him, gives Eddie a half-wave over his shoulder, and closes the door behind him.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>As soon as Richie closes the door, Eddie makes a beeline for the bathroom. He’s fucking rage-sweating through his fucking Louis Vuitton dress shirt, and Richie’s gonna pay for his goddamn dry-cleaning after all of this blows over.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>The worst part is that Eddie really <em>did </em>feel bad about… <em>it</em>. He felt even worse when he thought Richie had heard what he’d accidentally called Charles van Goa— <em>Charles</em> only minutes before Richie had come in the door, but that’s neither here nor there.</p><p>“Motherfucking, spoon-licking,” Eddie growls, unbuttoning his shirt as he glares at himself in the mirror, “<em>pulp-drinking sonofa<span class="u">bitch</span>—</em>”</p><p>Once he’s done shouting in the mirror and changing his shirt, he leaves the scene of the roommate crime for work. It was already going to be an unpleasant day, what with the late night and the pile of work he has stacked on his desk, but now it’s going to fucking blow.</p><p>And it does. It does because Eddie can’t shake the feeling that he <em>still </em>needs to apologize to Richie, even though Richie was the one who said all that stupid-ass shit. </p><p>(Though that’s nothing new; Richie’s always saying stupid-ass shit, especially when he thinks he’s in trouble. A holdover from their childhood of countless detentions made even worse by Richie trying to talk his way out of them.)</p><p>Yet Eddie still has that itch in the back of his neck, the one that was probably planted there by his mom, the instinct to blame himself and the urge to apologize to make it better. Normally that itch makes him want to tear his skin off, makes him rage even harder, but… </p><p>
  <em>But…</em>
</p><p>Richie Tozier is the best thing to ever happen to him. And Eddie’s not so stupid as not to know it.</p><p>Richie has taken him in not once but <em>twice </em>now, when he was suffocating in his own home and had nowhere else to go. The first time was when his mother died when he was in high school and left him in that awful, rundown dust trap of a house all by himself, and the Toziers took him in with nary a thought. And the second was last year, when Eddie finally looked at his marriage and called it what it was—a sham—and Richie, still thoughtlessly unselfish, offered up his guest bedroom, his kitchen, his bathroom, his—</p><p>—living room… </p><p>Guilt itches at his nape again, made all the worse by the knowledge that curdles shamefully in his gut that… that… </p><p>…that doing it in the living room was <em>part </em>of it. </p><p>It’s the reason he’d made so sure to only bring someone back on a night when Richie had—he <em>had</em>—specifically said he would be back late. Because he’d wanted the familiarity, the homeyness, the… fuck, it’s gross, but the <em>scents</em> of his and Richie’s shared apartment. He <em>wanted </em>to get fucked on the recliner where he sits and drinks beer and shits on <em>Baywatch</em> with Richie while secretly wishing Richie would be the one fucking him in said recliner.</p><p>Pathetic.</p><p>Eddie is home and has already worked out, eaten, showered, and spent long, jittery hours alternating between angry and anxious by the time Richie finally gets back. He’s late as usual, though not as late as last night, which Eddie counts with gritted teeth as another strike against himself.</p><p>Richie enters the apartment slowly, hesitantly, the door creaking on its hinges, and Eddie wants to scream tunelessly along with it when Richie’s eyes tentatively meet his.</p><p>He stands up from the Barcalounger, drawing a breath. “Hey,” he says.</p><p>“Hey…”</p><p>“Uh… how was your day? You didn’t take a walk for twelve hours, did you?” Eddie’s chuckle is as gentle as he can make it without starting to whisper.</p><p>“Ha, no, no,” Richie answers with a laugh, just as gently. He offers a wry smile. “But I did get shat on by, presumably, <em>two </em>separate pigeons, so. I think I got the whole ‘outdoors’ experience.”</p><p>Eddie wrinkles his nose, stepping closer. “Fuckin’ gross, dude.”</p><p>“Yeah, talk about a shitty day.” Richie’s grin expands at Eddie’s answering eye-roll. It turns abruptly tentative, however, an eye squinting. “Hey, though, uh… no hard feelings about earlier?”</p><p>Eddie’s chest lightens. “Yeah, man, o’course,” he says quickly. “Uh, unless <em>you </em>had any…”</p><p>“No, I—” Richie huffs a laugh, running a hand through his hair. “I worked out my feelings about orange juice on my first walk of the day.”</p><p>“Oh, good.”</p><p>Slowly, one step at a time, they’ve both come to stand on either side of the kitchen peninsula. They’re both avoiding each other’s eyes, Eddie notices, as he scratches at a spot on the tile with a thumbnail. Richie is fiddling with his glasses, cleaning them on the hem of his shirt.</p><p>Maybe Eddie should just… come clean. Tell Richie everything, about his feelings. Richie won’t return them, obviously, but at least then Eddie can have some closure. The word sounds good even in his head: cah-<em>lo</em>-zhur. His heart beats in time with the syllables.</p><p>They’re only inches apart. Eddie could easily just… just <em>reach across</em>…</p><p>“Well,” Richie says with a quick, noisy drum of his fingertips against the counter, “not to be redundant, but I’m pooped. Think I’m gonna hit the hay.”</p><p>And he slouches past Eddie towards his room.</p><p>“Hey, wait!”</p><p>Eddie’s heart has no right being in his throat the way it is as Richie turns to him. Pulse pounding in his temples, Eddie whips around to grab the bag he’d stashed behind the microwave and tosses it.</p><p>“Got these for you.” </p><p>Richie catches the bag in midair, hefting it in his hand so he can get a look at the label. He barks a laugh. “Plastic spoons,” he chuckles, glancing to Eddie. “So I can lick to my heart’s content?” </p><p>“Since apparently you must,” Eddie answers with a wry grin, crossing his arms over his thundering chest. “I even made sure to get the more biodegradable ones.”</p><p>“Al Gore would be proud.” Richie gives a lopsided smile before he makes for his bedroom, calling over his shoulder as he dips out of sight, “Thanks, man, these’ll be great in my new place.”</p><p>New—</p><p>In his new—</p><p>Eddie’s heart sinks into the floor. </p><p>“B-but I thought you—” he starts, his words trailing off as he realizes Richie probably can’t hear him, messing around in his room. His feet carry him to Richie’s doorway before he even realizes.</p><p>Richie’s room is full of cardboard boxes. They’re all clearly secondhand, fished from dumpsters and alleyways, the majority of them covered in logos for the brand of coffee that Central Perk carries, and they’re all open, the flaps flopping outward.</p><p>He did this all in one day…?</p><p>His heart in his throat, Eddie mutely watches Richie gingerly maneuver through his bedroom. The box flaps snag on his pants and hinder his progress, making him curse under his breath. Clothing, books, CDs—Eddie spies all of them in various boxes, packed with no rhyme or reason, surely without thought for weight distribution. Richie’s going to throw his back out trying to pick up the barrel-sized box full of his old textbooks, the idiot.</p><p>There’s all of that, but Eddie can’t even bring himself to be annoyed because— </p><p>“You’re still moving?” he asks. His voice sounds small in his ears.</p><p>Richie flinches, as though he didn’t expect Eddie to follow him. Even though their apartment is creaky as shit, the carpet is threadbare, wearing through in places, because every time Mr. Treeger, the super, comes up to inspect something, Richie ends up talking his ear off for hours and he never gets anything done. </p><p>“Uh, yeah,” Richie says with an aborted shrug. He tosses the bag of spoons on top of an unfolded mess of winter coats. “I mean, everything we talked about is still true. And you’ve never really lived on your own, and clearly you’ve been wanting more freedom, and, like, our hours are totally incompatible…”</p><p>“Yeah, but…”</p><p>Eddie doesn’t know how to finish that sentence other than, <em>but it’s <span class="u">us</span>.</em></p><p>“But it’s <em>your </em>apartment,” is what he settles on.</p><p>Richie huffs a laugh at that. “I’m pretty sure it belongs to Northern Management Properties, LLC, but I like to believe I made it my own.”</p><p>Eddie rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he grumbles.</p><p>Richie purses his lips. “Yeah,” he sighs, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Yeah, I guess I do.”</p><p>They stand in awkward silence. Eddie wishes they were fighting instead of… instead of <em>this</em>. This uncomfortable melancholy.</p><p>He doesn’t know how to say the idea of living without Richie feels like a step back. Or, just as bad, a step forward in the <em>wrong </em>direction. The direction away from Richie.</p><p>He left Myra for many reasons. The fact that he was gay, for one. The realization that he had essentially married his mother, for another. Not to mention the whole host of casual emotional abuse and gaslighting that they heaped upon each other—Eddie could cop to that, to his great shame. They were bad for each other, no question about it.</p><p>But in spite of all of that—in spite of the clear and undeniable fact that he <em>should not be with Myra</em>—the one thought that consistently, no matter what, got Eddie to put one foot in front of the other and follow through with his request for a separation was the knowledge that Richie had offered his spare room. The knowledge that, if he got through it all, through the tunnel, Richie was on the other side.</p><p>He hollowly watches as Richie haphazardly slings some winter wear into a box with his Diskman, some Van Halen CDs, and an Etch-a-Sketch. </p><p>“Where are you even moving to?” he asks, trying to ignore how sourly he says it.</p><p>“Oh,” Richie says over his shoulder, like Eddie’s surprised him by still being there. “Well, like I said, my castmate needs someone to sublet, so I’ll be— Hey, actually.” He sits back on his heels, looking at Eddie with a painted-on smile. “I think you’ve been there. Remember that party I took you to?”</p><p>Eddie scoffs. “The bathroom with all the fuckin’ mirrors? It was like peeing with the Rockettes.”</p><p>“Hey, that’s the dream,” Richie quips, balling up an AC/DC shirt and tossing it somewhere. It’s enough to make a muscle in Eddie’s eyebrow spasm.</p><p>If Eddie weren’t feeling quite so… so <em>much </em>about the entire concept of moving, he would force Richie to sit down and develop a goddamn system. Heavy things in small boxes, Richie; otherwise you’ll never be able to carry it. Fucking duh, how do you get to be twenty-eight years old and not know this?</p><p>But Eddie <em>is </em>feeling so much about this. </p><p>So all he does is watch.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thanks to laser for the beta!</p><p>i'm <a href="https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_">@tempestbreak_</a> on twitter!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The One Where Patrick Moves In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Welcome to <em>casa de Richie</em>.”</p>
<p>Richie makes his voice boom as he pulls the door open to see the faces of his best friends. He steps aside to allow them in, sweeping out one arm to indicate the enormous living room. The bag of bagels he got from the place around the corner swings in his fist.</p>
<p>“Everything the light touches is my kingdom.”</p>
<p>“Wow…” Bill says, leading the pack inside. “It looks…” </p>
<p>“Big,” Ben says agreeably, running his hand along the little lamp that sticks out of the wall. “Nice sconces.”</p>
<p>“They’re bagels, actually,” Richie answers.</p>
<p>Predictably, Stan rolls his eyes as he steps tentatively into the apartment, peering around him like something smells, even though Richie’s pretty sure that’s impossible. He just moved in this week; not even he has that kind of stink power.</p>
<p>“You got us bagels?” Bev asks with some enthusiasm, snatching the bag from Richie’s hands. She opens it and sticks her face in, inhaling deeply. When she straightens, her expression is dreamy. “<em>Fresh </em>bagels, holy shit. I’m in heaven.”</p>
<p>“Place is, like, five minutes away,” Richie says proudly, like he built it himself.</p>
<p>“Nice,” Bill laughs. “That makes this <em>all</em> worth it.”</p>
<p>While Bev sets to preparing herself a bagel, the others fan out in the living room. Stan is picking his way around Richie’s brand-new futuristic couch when Richie comes to lean nonchalantly near him.</p>
<p>“Decorated it myself,” he says proprietarily.</p>
<p>“You don’t say.”</p>
<p>“You certainly have a unique style, Richie,” Mike says, petting his fuzziest throw pillow. “Is this genuine Muppet skin?”</p>
<p>Richie proceeds to give the grand tour, much grander than the tours he used to give of his old place. Ben makes lots of humming noises, sounding impressed, though the things he’s humming at are tilework and those extra pieces of wood that go around the tops of the walls, not the <em>Street Fighter</em> first-edition arcade cabinet or the white, faux-marble dog statue that’s nearly the same size as him, or even the fact that he has—</p>
<p>“—a phone?” Bill asks, clearly flabbergasted. “In <em>here</em>?”</p>
<p>“That’s right,” Richie says in delight. “In case nature calls, and I need to find out who else did, too.”</p>
<p>“Richie, do me a favor,” Stan says.</p>
<p>“Yeah, what’s up?”</p>
<p>“Never call me from that phone.”</p>
<p>Richie finishes the tour with introductions for all of his animal statues, complete with voices. He has Ben in stitches.</p>
<p>“So, whaddaya think?” he asks eagerly, turning to them. “You like it?” </p>
<p>“Yeah, man, it’s great,” Mike says, lounging elegantly in Richie’s most bibliophilic chair. If only the shelf behind it weren’t full of knock-knock joke books.</p>
<p>“I’m still just so excited you can afford a place like this,” Bev says, a smear of cream cheese on her freckled chin. “I still remember the days you were living on our floor, subsisting only on some Skippy eaten straight from the jar with your own two hands.”</p>
<p>“Peanut butter fingers,” Richie says solemnly.</p>
<p>“And now look at you.” She puts a hand on his shoulder, gesturing to his menagerie of statues. “Surrounded by apex predators. I’m so proud.”</p>
<p>Richie grins at her. “Thanks, Bevvie,” he says, before looking around at the rest of them. “I’m so glad you all could make it out here. I know it’s kind of off the beaten path for us, so I get why, uh…” </p>
<p>He can’t stop the drop in his voice, the way his eyes fall to the floor. He scuffs his foot along the surface—flawless, almost reflective white marble.</p>
<p>“Why, uh… Eddie couldn’t make it, huh?”</p>
<p>The rest of them exchange looks. His heart sinks.</p>
<p>“No, sweetie,” Bev says gently, stepping around Ben to go to his side. She rubs his arm comfortingly. “But if it makes you feel better, I can yell at you about how your shower curtain’s gonna get mold if you keep it like that.”</p>
<p>Richie sniffles theatrically and nods. “Yeah,” he says, lip wobbling. “That’d be nice.”</p>
<p>“I am also happy to step up in this capacity,” Stan says, making Mike snort and shake his head.</p>
<p>“Thanks, you guys,” Richie says, looking around. “Thanks to all of you, really. I couldn’ta done this without you all, you know, letting me mooch of all of you over the years. I mean, Bill getting me a job at the coffeehouse. Stanley— <em>Stanley</em> paying for my first headshots.” He claps him on the shoulder, giving an uncharacteristically sincere smile which Stan belatedly returns. </p>
<p>“Aw, Rich,” Ben says, smiling widely. “You know we’ll always support you.”</p>
<p>He can’t help the wriggle in his brain that tells him something’s missing. A spice in the mélange of flavors. Something that would drawl, <em>Yeah, you selfish asshole, and we’ll still be here when this goes tits up, too.</em></p>
<p>He shoves that down, smile pinned to his cheeks as he slides his hand behind Stan’s neck, reeling him in close by the elbow. “I really do mean it, I’d be nothing without you all. So think of today as just… the first step in me paying you back.”</p>
<p>After they all smile and coo, Stan looks up, fixing him with a flat look. “So you’re never actually <em>going </em>to pay me back.”</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>Richie waits too long to go see Eddie. He knows he does.</p>
<p>He also knows the longer he waits, the worse it’s gonna get. The Band-Aid he’s supposed to rip off is just going to get gummy and gross and melt into his leg hair or something, and he’ll have to take a shot of whiskey and bite down on a belt to rip it off.</p>
<p>So that’s why he’s up early one Saturday, nearly two weeks since he moved, trudging up the well-worn stairwell, the familiar scents of garlic and cigarette smoke all the more salient to his nose now that he’s been away. The third step from the top still creaks loudly when his worn-out sneakers land on it, and there’s still that awful stain from when he and Bev accidentally dropped a whole cheesecake on the threadbare carpet. </p>
<p>In contrast, the lobby of his new building has a doorman and a person at the front desk and four elevators that smell like Lysol. The fact that Richie is the one living there and not Eddie must be some kind of cosmic joke.</p>
<p>As he nears Apartment 19, though, the smells begin to change. Something savory, almost greasy, fills his lungs, making him salivate. He’d meant to pick up something at Central Perk on his way home, but his stomach is already rumbling as he approaches their door. Mike must be cooking up a big weekend breakfast for him and Stan. Maybe Richie can mooch afterwards...</p>
<p>He reaches for the knob and turns it—only to find it locked. He’s reaching for the keys in his pocket before he even realizes. He stops himself with a stern shake.</p>
<p>“Duh.” His chest pangs as he shakes his head at himself. “You don’t live here anymore, dumbass.”</p>
<p>He lifts his fist to knock instead.</p>
<p>He can hear shuffling on the other side, the sound of a utensil being set down. In a moment, the door is pulled open a suspicious inch.</p>
<p>An unfamiliar gray eye fixes him with a stare.</p>
<p>Richie has to stop himself from reeling back in surprise. A stranger? Did Eddie <em>move</em>? Does he even have the right apartment!?</p>
<p>“Who’re you.”</p>
<p>The voice is odd. Low but not gruff. It’s like the fine, mineral silt at the bottom of a river, the kind that sucks at your feet and ankles if you stand in it too long. </p>
<p>His heart in his throat, Richie’s mouth falls open, his jaw working before he gathers his voice to respond to this— this stranger. This strangely intimidating stranger.</p>
<p>“U-uh, Richie?” he squeaks. “Richie Tozier, I used to—”</p>
<p>“Richie?”</p>
<p>He practically melts with relief at Eddie’s voice from farther inside the apartment. “Y-yeah, Eds!” he calls. “It’s me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I wasn’t expecting… Patrick, you can let him in.”</p>
<p>The stranger—Patrick—gives Richie one final, impassive look and then steps back, allowing the door to swing open wide enough for Richie to step in. Richie tries to ignore how tall Patrick is—taller than him, even—and how the slouch of his shoulders and the curve of his slender torso remind him of some kind of wild animal. He also tries to ignore how Patrick closes and locks the door as soon as Richie enters; even the deadbolt slides into place. It’s a strangely ominous sound.</p>
<p>The second thing Richie notices is that the smell in the hallway was coming from <em>here</em>. He identifies the source immediately: some kind of meat is pan-frying in oil on the stove. As Richie’s eyes land on it, Patrick slouches over to tend to it, poking at it with a rubber spatula.</p>
<p>“Didn’t know you’d be having guests,” Patrick says, voice low.</p>
<p>“Neither did I,” Eddie responds, his eyes curious on Richie.</p>
<p>“Didn’t make enough for guests.”</p>
<p>“Oh! Ha, no,” Richie laughs shrilly. “That’s— well, that’s mighty kind of ya, but I’m— I’m not hungry, ya see, though it looks like you grill up a fine mess o’ vittles.”</p>
<p>“Stop doing the dumb cowboy voice,” Eddie says irritably.</p>
<p>“Vittles,” Patrick murmurs.</p>
<p>“Richie’s the one who used to live here,” Eddie offers, changing the subject.</p>
<p>“Oh. Big comedy guy.”</p>
<p>“Workin’ on it, anyway,” Richie says brightly.</p>
<p>“Say something funny.”</p>
<p>Richie’s stomach sinks. The comedian’s nightmare. “Uhh…” His eyes madly roam the room for some sort of prompt but come up woefully short. He slaps on a manic grin. “You, uh, think that Speed Racer guy gets a lot of tickets?”</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>Eddie snorts.</p>
<p>After a moment, Patrick says, “Food’s done.” He pulls down a plate and scrapes the bits of blackened meat onto it in a pile. “See ya, pals,” he says with a sardonic tap of his fork to his temple and then slinks into his room, closing the door securely behind him.</p>
<p>Richie and Eddie are alone.</p>
<p>Richie swallows hard. “So,” he says, “replaced me fast, huh?”</p>
<p>Eddie hunkers over his bowl, not making eye contact. “Didn’t wanna pay twice the rent. Made sense.”</p>
<p>Humming, Richie leans over the stovetop. The frying pan is charred to hell. “Surprised you allow this kinda thing in your kitchen.”</p>
<p>“It’s his frying pan, he can fuckin’ destroy it if he wants to.” He lifts his head to look at Richie, unimpressed. “Did you really not notice it was a completely different frying pan than the ones we— <em>I </em>have?”</p>
<p>Color rises in Eddie’s cheeks for a moment before he ducks his face back to his bowl of oatmeal.</p>
<p>“Nope, I really didn’t,” Richie admits, “though I would have noticed if he moved the takeout menu for that Chinese place off the fridge.”</p>
<p>“Place closed.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“What?”</em>
</p>
<p>“Not really,” Eddie grumbles, shoveling the final bites of his breakfast into his mouth. “Though it coulda in the time it took you to show your face around here again.”</p>
<p>Heat crawls up Richie’s neck. It’s a little uncalled for, maybe, the bitterness in Eddie’s tone, but a part of him still feels like he deserves it. “...Yeah,” he sighs. “Sorry. I just…”</p>
<p>“It’s whatever,” Eddie cuts in with a wave of his hand. He stands and gathers his bowl to take to the sink, skirting around Richie. “It’s for the best. You have your new place, I have a new roommate. It’s not like I couldn’t find someone else to come in and lick the silverware.”</p>
<p>Richie’s chest clenches again. He decides to cover it with a joke. “Ah, but does he use your toothbrush, is the real question…”</p>
<p>Eddie whirls on him. “You used my toothbrush!?”</p>
<p>Richie grins, his heart fluttering in a whole new, much more familiar way. The sparks of incredulous anger in Eddie’s eyes have always made his pulse go <em>tippity-tap-tap</em>. “Yeahh, once, but only because I used the red one to unclog the drain.”</p>
<p>Eddie’s face goes even redder. He sputters, “<em>Mine </em>is the red one! Oh, <em>god</em>!” Eyes wide, he plasters a palm over his forehead, like he’s checking for a fever. Or maybe an aneurysm. “Can open, worms <em>everywhere</em>…” </p>
<p>This is feeling familiar, now, Richie thinks with enthusiasm. It’s feeling good. Like they can go back to normal.</p>
<p>Even though Richie doesn’t live here anymore. Even though they haven’t gone this long without seeing each other since Eddie left Myra.</p>
<p>Even though when Eddie left Myra, Richie very theatrically promised himself they’d never go more than twenty-four hours without seeing each other again.</p>
<p>Well, it’s not the first promise he’s broken. Think of all the countless times he promised he’d finally confess his feelings to Eddie.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he says, holding up his hands defensively as he moseys over to the refrigerator, “how come we can’t use the same toothbrush but we could use the same… soap?”</p>
<p>He pulls open the refrigerator door, talking over Eddie’s incredulous noise of rage.</p>
<p>“Or shampoo, or dishes, or—”</p>
<p>He stops.</p>
<p>There’s a new carton of orange juice in the fridge.</p>
<p>With pulp.</p>
<p>“...Or orange juice,” he finishes lamely. Slowly, he drags his gaze back to Eddie, whose lips are pressed tightly together in an unreadable expression. “You got it with pulp?” he asks, his voice small.</p>
<p>Eddie jerks his shoulders in an irritable shrug, not meeting Richie’s eyes. “Yeah, well,” he drawls loudly, “that’s what Patrick likes, apparently, so.”</p>
<p>“It’s also what <em>I </em>like, Eddie.” His voice has an edge to it as he lets the door swing closed with a rattle. This is not how he wanted this morning to go. They’re supposed to be making up. They’re supposed to be friends again when he leaves, but… but now… “<em>I </em>like it with pulp.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter what you like anymore, does it?” Eddie snaps. “Because you <em>left</em>. You left and you— you <em>abandoned </em>the pulpless juice, because I guess it must just be <em>sooo </em>horrible and disgusting, so fucking forgive me for trying out some other kinda juice! Did you really expect me never to find new juice!?”</p>
<p>“I guess I thought you’d at least wait until the expiration date!”</p>
<p>“Well, I thought <em>you </em>would!!”</p>
<p>“F-fine!”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Fine!”</em>
</p>
<p>They glare at each other for one moment, Richie’s eyes wild, Eddie’s chin defiant. Frustration, despair, fucking stupid-ass <em>love</em>—they all well up madly in Richie’s stomach, bubbling into his throat. He wants to scream and throw things; he wants to fall on the floor and cling to Eddie’s knees.</p>
<p>Why are they like this? Why are they always fucking like this?</p>
<p>“Hey, fellas, could you keep it down? You’re freaking out the fish.”</p>
<p>They both flinch at Patrick’s oily voice, spoken from the crack on his bedroom door. His gray, heavy-lidded eyes look at them with a total lack of concern.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Richie blurts out, “I was just leaving, anyway. Just needed to pick up my, uh— my…” He casts about for something but nothing, <em>nothing </em>appears. Finally he throws his hands up in exasperation. “My <em>dignity</em>, I guess, but I shoulda known better. It was never fuckin’ here, huh? Whatever. I’m out.” He tugs the shitty, broken zipper up on his hoodie</p>
<p>“Okay,” says Patrick, unflappable.</p>
<p>“Richie…” </p>
<p>“Bye, Eds,” he blusters over him, whirling for the door. “Congratulations on your pulp.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Patrick is an all right guy, Eddie tells himself.</p>
<p>He tells himself this because Patrick is rigid about the delineations between <em>his </em>stuff and <em>Eddie’s </em>stuff. (And yeah, the pulpy orange juice was Patrick’s, Eddie’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole, but Richie was pissing him off so he told a shitty lie, all right?) </p>
<p>He tells himself this because Patrick always picks up the mail and always leaves Eddie’s for him on the counter. He tells himself this because Patrick holes himself up in his room for nine out of every ten hours he and Eddie occupy the same eight hundred square feet, and because Patrick doesn’t drink his beers, and because Patrick doesn’t lick the fucking spoons and<em> put them back in the drawer, Richie, what the <span class="u">fuck</span>!!!</em></p>
<p>Anyway, he tells himself all of this. But he can’t help the feeling that Patrick is… <em>weird</em>.</p>
<p>Yes, he keeps to himself, but… maybe a little <em>too </em>much. Eddie doesn’t have any idea what occupies Patrick for most of the day. And whenever Patrick leaves his room he almost sidles out of it, like he’s trying to block something from Eddie’s view. It’s only been a couple weeks, so Eddie is trying really, really hard not to let himself think the words <em>skin suit</em> because he knows from experience that once he <em>starts </em>thinking the words <em>skin suit </em>it’s almost impossible to <em>stop</em> thinking the words <em>skin suit</em>, but...</p>
<p>It’s really hard not to think the words <em>skin suit.</em></p>
<p>If Richie were around—and they weren’t… doing whatever they’re doing right now—Eddie would mention these thoughts to him. Because Eddie can tell Richie pretty much anything. And he’d secretly enjoy Richie teasing him for his ridiculous thoughts, because the teasing would tell him he was being paranoid for absolutely no reason, because even if Eddie still wouldn’t stop thinking the words, maybe he could laugh at them in his own head when he did think them. At least a little.</p>
<p>But right now Richie is probably in his own fancy new apartment, probably playing <em>Space Invaders</em> or <em>Asteroids </em>or even the original <em>Street Fighter</em> in the original arcade cabinet format. God, when Mike told him about that, Eddie almost marched his way down to Richie’s swanky new pad just to kick down the door, yell at Richie and force him to get all of this out of their system, so they could challenge each other to a round, just like old times. </p>
<p>But he didn’t.</p>
<p>Instead, Bill came over. And Bill is definitely not the type of friend you can say the words <em>skin suit </em>to. Bill is the kind of friend to turn to Eddie when Eddie mentions not knowing much about Patrick yet and say with a look of glee,</p>
<p>“Let’s get to know the new kid!”</p>
<p>Eddie eyes him warily, fingers squeezing hard at his stress ball. It’s the third one he’s gone through this year, and it’s only June. “I don’t think he really wants—” </p>
<p>“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” Bill interrupts him. He snatches the foam ball from Eddie’s hand and winds it up to pitch it directly at Patrick’s door.</p>
<p>“No, don’t—!”</p>
<p>It hits with a resounding thud.</p>
<p>Eddie clenches his jaw. “What the <em>fuck </em>is wrong with you?” he demands of Bill. Maybe he should have said <em>skin suit </em>to him after all. </p>
<p>Bill just grins. “Nothing, I’m just breaking the ice!”</p>
<p>Eddie’s teeth are grinding to nubs in his mouth. “Plunging us into <em>frigid water</em>—”</p>
<p>The door cracks open, and they both fall silent, turning toward the creaking hinges. One colorless eye peers back at them from behind lank hair.</p>
<p>“Someone knock…?”</p>
<p>A shiver runs down Eddie’s spine. He bares his teeth in what he hopes is a smile, eyes darting to Bill, who appears completely unaffected, smiling blithely.</p>
<p>“Hey, man,” Bill pipes up, lifting a hand. “I’m Bill, one of Eddie’s friends. I thought maybe the three of us could have some beers, get to know each other a little better?” </p>
<p>Patrick edges out of his room, his sleepy eyes narrowed as he regards them. His face is unreadable before his lips twitch into a smirk. “Sure,” he says, his voice low and syrupy as always. “That might be good.”</p>
<p>“Awesome,” says Bill with a smile, turning to the fridge. </p>
<p>“Great,” Eddie intones, offering Patrick a tentative smile before turning to glare at Bill, who is fishing some Buds out of the fridge.</p>
<p>Undeterred, Bill spins back to the counter with a grin. “So, Patrick, tell me about your— oh, <em>no</em>.” He lets his mouth drop open like the transparent idiot he is.</p>
<p>Eddie’s face sets into an even harder frown. “Oh, no?” he echoes, unamused.</p>
<p>“I forgot that I have to go to my… book club,” Bill finishes unconvincingly, but still with that blithe smile. “Sorry ’bout tha—”</p>
<p>“What book,” Eddie asks, eyes narrowed.</p>
<p>“It’s, um.” Bill’s adam’s apple bobs noticeably as he twirls a finger in the air. “<em>Green Eggs and Ham</em>.”</p>
<p>“Lots to discuss in that one, huh.”</p>
<p>Avoiding Eddie’s eyes, Bill dips away to wind his scarf around his neck. “Yep,” he agrees cheerily. “Today it’s why he would not eat them on a train. Have fun, bye!”</p>
<p>“You are so transparent,” Eddie hisses angrily into Bill’s ear as he passes him, shrugging on his coat.</p>
<p>“I know, right?” Bill chuckles, reaching for the door. He pauses on his way out, the door nearly shut after him, to whisper meaningfully, <em>“Talk to him,” </em>before Eddie shoves it in his face.</p>
<p>Eddie glares at the closed door for just a little longer, wondering, not for even the first time that <em>hour</em>, why he is currently living with a stranger instead of any of his dumbass friends.</p>
<p>Oh, because he decided he needed to get railed in his own living room and completely humiliated himself and mortified his best friend. Right.</p>
<p>When Eddie turns around, Patrick is watching him impassively over his beer bottle, held to his lips. Eddie offers a shaky smile that he doesn’t feel; Patrick remains expressionless.</p>
<p>“So…” Eddie sighs, trying to ignore the itch creeping up his spine as he inches toward the countertop to pick up his own bottle. “You got any friends as dumb as Bill, or am I just lucky?”</p>
<p>Patrick smirks.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>“So what do you do for a living, man?” Eddie asks, kicking back.</p>
<p>This is actually not nearly as painful as he thought he would be. They’ve managed to carry on conversation, albeit slightly stilted, for the past fifteen minutes, and Eddie is starting to relax. Maybe Patrick really is as all right as he’s been telling himself.</p>
<p>“I thought you mentioned something about… genetics or biology or something?”</p>
<p>“I’m a subject matter expert in genomics,” Patrick replies smoothly.</p>
<p>Eddie expects him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.</p>
<p>“...What’s that mean?” Eddie asks belatedly. “Are you, like, cloning sheep or mice or whatever?”</p>
<p>Patrick snorts. “Kind of the opposite, I guess you could say.”</p>
<p>Eddie sits in that for a minute. His eyes are staring at the floor, mind blank but still whirring.</p>
<p>
  <em>What the fuck is the <span class="u">opposite</span> of cloning something?</em>
</p>
<p>When he lifts his gaze back to Patrick, he’s careful. “...What’s your day-to-day like?” he asks shrewdly.</p>
<p>“Yeah, great question,” Patrick says smoothly, sitting back. He drapes his limbs over the chair, almost fluid, as usual. “So I do work with the Undiagnosed Diseases Program with the NIH. I help them figure out which genes are affected in different terminal congenital illnesses.”</p>
<p>Eddie’s nodding but his heart is thudding against his chest. This is sounding like his personal nightmare job. Surrounding yourself all day with bizarre diseases that no one knows anything about?</p>
<p>“So you’re… trying to find cures?” he says hopefully, taking a sip of his beer.</p>
<p>“Not really.” Patrick shrugs. “Mostly I watch fish die.”</p>
<p>Eddie chokes. “Excuse me?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, so they, like, give me the fish that they fuck up with these diseases,” he says, his tone utterly blasé, “and then I record how long it takes them to die.”</p>
<p>Eddie’s blood is cold under his skin. “Oh, that…” he starts, and has to pause to lick his parched lips. “That sounds… morbid.”</p>
<p>“Yeahh, it’s all right,” Patrick says. He grins, fixing Eddie with a glint in his gray eyes. “They’re all squirming and shit, making that stupid fish mouth at the glass before they go belly up. Makes me feel like a god, you know?”</p>
<p>And while Eddie is still trying to figure out how the fuck to respond to that, Patrick laughs. He laughs as he brings his beer bottle back to his colorless lips, and the sound sends a chill down Eddie’s spine.</p>
<p>If only he’d just licked the silverware.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>watching fish die is a real job at the NIH, though i imagine the undiagnosed diseases program was not around back then. the real UDP is based on genome sequencing which wouldn't have been readily available in the '90s, but the job was too perfect not to give to patrick.</p>
<p>i’m <a href="https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_">@tempestbreak_</a> on twitter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The One Where Eddie Finds Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So. Patrick might not be as all right of a guy as Eddie initially told himself.</p><p>But that’s okay. Eddie doesn’t need to <em>like </em>him for him to be a good roommate. Hell, Eddie’s fucking in love with Richie, and Richie’s one of the worst roommates he’s ever had, just objectively, like in terms of not shoving his toothbrush down the drain. Which, really, should be the bare minimum as far as roommates go.</p><p>So Eddie decides to revise his expectations. All Patrick needs to do is be neat, pay rent on time, and not fuck with Eddie, and Eddie will do the same, and that will be that. At least Eddie has his own private getaway across the hall in the form of Stan and Mike’s apartment.</p><p>But as Eddie finds is so often the case in his life, once he starts disliking someone, it only gets harder and harder to see them in any sort of positive light. It’s some kind of snowball effect. It starts with the thought of, <em>Huh, that conversation ended up in kind of a weird place</em>. Pretty soon it’s, <em>What kind of person just watches animals die all day and <span class="u">doesn’t</span> end up some kind of massive creep? </em>And before long it’s become, <em>Gee, I wish my roommate didn’t hole himself up in his room twenty-four-seven like he’s tending to hostages</em>, and Eddie is having nightmares about lambs screaming.</p><p>But the final straw is the animals. </p><p>Now, Eddie’s not an animal fan even under the best of circumstances. They shed, they carry disease, they make everything just somehow <em>dirtier</em>. And that’s dogs Eddie’s talking about, America’s favorite pet.</p><p>Patrick is not bringing home dogs.</p><p>The first one is a fish, and unlike its successors, it’s alive, at least at first. Eddie only knows about it because he’s in the living room watching TV when Patrick walks in the door with the bag. It’s a goldfish, one of the ones with those bulbous, bulging eyes, gaping dumbly at Eddie through the stretched plastic. They exchange little more than grunts in greeting, and Eddie eyes Patrick surreptitiously over his <em>Car &amp; Driver</em> as he scuttles away into his bedroom, closing the door swiftly behind him.</p><p>He tells himself it’s chill. Patrick did tell him about his job, after all, in a conversation that terrified him to his very soul. Never mind the fact that <em>this </em>fish looks very different from the tiny, colorful specks that Eddie has caught glimpses of in Patrick’s enormous aquariums. This fish looks like it’s from a pet store, not a government research facility. It looks like it should be taken home by a little girl, given a stupid name like <em>Goldie</em>, and live out the rest of its days getting fat on those smelly pellets that fish seem to like so much.</p><p>The next time Eddie sees the fish, it’s lying dead in the toilet. Its eyes bulge at him judgmentally.</p><p>“All right,” Eddie mutters as he hits the handle to flush the poor creature. “Scale suit it is, then.”</p><p>When Eddie sees Patrick again, he can’t help himself. He decides he has to say <em>something</em>. Something to let Patrick know he’s onto him. </p><p>Because there’s no way Patrick is allowed to <em>flush the diseased government fish down the toilet</em>. Eddie can’t allow that to be true. </p><p>No, this fish died… <em>recreationally.</em></p><p>So as Patrick tries to slip back into his room after snagging a Mountain Dew from the fridge, Eddie snaps his newspaper like a hardboiled detective and calls over it, “Didn’t work out with the fish, then?”</p><p>Patrick’s steps slow to a stop. Eddie doesn’t lower his newspaper, trying to appear nonchalant. Not like this is a <em>gotcha </em>moment.</p><p>“What’s that?” Patrick replies, his voice low and slow as always. For some reason, it shoots a spike of adrenaline through Eddie’s veins.</p><p>“The fish,” Eddie repeats, trying not to stammer. Why is he suddenly feeling hot, like a laser beam is trained on his skull? “I saw that it— it died… Sorry.”</p><p><em>“Sorry”?</em> he thinks to himself, cringing. Well, whatever. It’s what a normal person would say to another normal person. Neither of whom is here at the moment.</p><p>Patrick is quiet for a long moment. So long that Eddie considers lowering his paper and meeting his eye, but he’s still committed to the paper as his nonchalant prop, like as long as he’s still carrying on the conversation from behind thin newsprint he can convince them both that he’s not two seconds away from turning Patrick into the NYPD.</p><p>For what crime, he’s not yet sure. Surely his DNA is on file for <em>something</em>.</p><p>“Guess he donated his body to science.”</p><p>Eddie’s paper drops from in front of his face from sheer shock at the audacity.</p><p>Patrick is staring back at him, a sly smirk on his lips. Like he <em>knows </em>Eddie knows he’s lying. Like he wants <em>Eddie </em>to know he knows Eddie knows he’s lying! </p><p>Eddie doesn’t even have the wherewithal to say a word before Patrick has slunk back into his room once more.</p><p>The next unwelcome animals appear in an even more unwelcome form.</p><p>Eddie opens the fridge one day, neatly split down the middle so each of them has their own space, and Patrick’s side is just <em>full to the brim </em>with meat. <em>Unlabeled </em>meat. Eddie knows because he gingerly pulls out one of the Ziploc bags to eye it suspiciously. The only marking on it is a date, scrawled on in Sharpie, of the previous weekend.</p><p>There’s nothing particularly suspicious about the meat itself. It looks kind of like chicken, although no cut of chicken Eddie has ever seen.</p><p>He doesn’t <em>think </em>it’s people.</p><p>...He’s, like, seventy percent sure it’s not people.</p><p>But he still scurries across the hall to burst through Mike and Stan’s door and demand one of them come over and inspect it for him.</p><p>“Just tell me if I can call the FBI on this fucker or not,” he insists, marching Mike back into his own apartment and throwing open the refrigerator door. A smirking Stan is right on their heels.</p><p>Mike pulls out the same bag that Eddie had earlier and studies it under the overhead light. He squints, turning it this way and that, before he looks down at Eddie, whose heart is pulsing in his throat. “Well,” he says haltingly, “I have good news and, probably for you, bad news.”</p><p>Eddie sets his jaw, smacking one hand into his other. “I knew it. I fuckin’ knew it. It’s people, right? It’s Soylent Green levels of people!”</p><p>“Eddie—”</p><p>“Tell him the news in whatever order is funniest, Mike,” Stan urges, amused.</p><p>Eddie glares at him. “I hope it’s still funny when you’re in <em>hell</em>.”</p><p>Stan just snorts, undeterred.</p><p>Mike huffs a fond laugh at his partner, shaking his head. “No, it’s not people,” he says. “That’s the good news. The bad news is… it’s squirrel.”</p><p>Eddie’s face twists in disgust. “Fucking excuse me? People eat squirrel? People <em>who live in New York City </em>eat squirrel!?”</p><p>“Sure, they’re everywhere,” Stan snickers. “Fresh off the vine.”</p><p>Mike sighs. “I’m sure Patrick’s not going out and just strangling squirrels in his spare time…”</p><p>“Oh god, that’s exactly what he’s doing,” Eddie moans, his fingers twisting in his hair. “Oh <em>god</em>, my roommate’s a squirrel strangler.”</p><p>“You know, they say for budding stranglers squirrels are like a gateway target,” Stan says. “Pretty soon he’ll be graduating to bigger, harder throats. Geese. Giraffes.”</p><p>“I bet you wouldn’t be having this much fun if <em>you </em>were the one living with fuckin’ John Wayne Gacy.”</p><p>“The difference is that I wouldn’t be caught having sex in the living room with my front door unlocked.”</p><p>“I caught you <em>last week</em>!” Eddie nearly squawks, utterly indignant. “And you barely even stopped! You were basically like, ‘Oh, come on in, my butt is surprisingly hairy!’”</p><p>“That oughta teach you the importance of knocking before you enter your married friends’ apartment.”</p><p>Eddie grimaces, Stan smirks, and Mike sighs once more, placing a hand on both of their shoulders placatingly. “Guys,” he says patiently, “as fun as it is to watch Eddie drive himself insane in real time, I don’t think it’s necessary. Think about it. Tons of people back home hunted squirrels and rabbits and game birds. It might be weird to see so much meat in the fridge at once, but it’s not a big deal. And as long as he’s doing it in designated areas, it’s totally legal.”</p><p>Eddie folds his arms over his chest. “So you’re saying I can’t call the FBI.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t just yet,” Mike chuckles, giving Eddie’s shoulder a pat before he moves closer to Stan, wrapping an arm around him. “Also, this may have occurred to you already but I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it: You could always just… ask him.”</p><p>“You know,” Stan pipes up smugly, “like an adult.”</p><p>As much as Eddie wants to shove Stan in his stupid face, he knows they’re right. He <em>could </em>just ask Patrick. He knows he’s spinning himself into a tizzy over what is almost certainly nothing.</p><p>But in some ways it’s a welcome distraction from the fact that the only other thing Eddie can think about is how badly he…</p><p>He just wants Richie back.</p><p>Some of that is a function of Patrick’s substantial creep factor. He’d take most people over Patrick at this point. He almost even wants <em>Myra </em>back, and <em>that </em>is a terrifying thought. But at least with Myra Eddie didn’t have to worry about which woodland creature was going to be inhabiting his Maytag. </p><p>It’s not just Patrick’s presence, though; it’s Richie’s absence. He feels it constantly. He feels it in the spot on the carpet that’s lighter where Richie’s recliner no longer is. He feels it in the lack of stupid drawings on the Magna Doodle. He feels it whenever the oven timer goes off because it’s time for them to shit on <em>Baywatch</em> but Richie doesn’t live here anymore, and Eddie’s not so melodramatic that he’ll watch it alone just to cry about David Hasselhoff’s chest hair.</p><p>However, he <em>is </em>melodramatic enough to throw himself down on the Central Perk couch beside Ben the next morning and let out a huge, world-weary sigh.</p><p>“Things not getting better with the roommate?” Mike asks wryly, his finger marking his place in a book.</p><p>“Definitely not,” Eddie answers sharply. “He asked me what the oven timer kept going off for, and when I told him it was for <em>Baywatch</em>, he looked at me like I was the fuckin’ scum of the Earth. <em>Me</em>, the one who <em>doesn’t </em>kill fish for a living. Plus…” He looks around them and then leans forward, beckoning them both in. Conspiratorially, he hisses, “I think he cooked squirrel for breakfast.” </p><p>They all fall back to their seats, Ben looking vaguely ill. “Suddenly so glad Bev and I don’t live in the same building as Michael Myers like the rest of you,” he says, turning green.</p><p>“Stan’s started locking our door,” Mike says gravely.</p><p>“Hey!” Eddie glares at him. “Where am I supposed to escape to when he comes at me with a cleaver in the middle of the night, then, huh?”</p><p>“Stan says you can knock like everyone else.”</p><p>Eddie groans, sliding down on the couch until his head hits the back of it. “Don’t tell him, but,” he mutters for Ben and Mike’s ears only, and again they lean in, “I really just want Richie back.”</p><p>“Hey, g— Oh.”</p><p>Eddie sits bolt upright at the sound of that voice. Richie is standing by the couch, seemingly frozen at the sight of Eddie.</p><p>“And <em>I </em>just want a million dollars,” Mike says, throwing an arm out towards the door expectantly.</p><p>“H-hey,” Eddie stammers. He nearly stands up, his body thrumming with nervous energy, but settles for turning his shoulders to face Richie. He can see Ben looking curiously between them out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>“Hey,” Richie says again, shoving his glasses up his nose.</p><p>They stare at each other. Ben and Mike stare at <em>them</em>.</p><p>Richie jerks his thumb toward the counter. “Just gonna get a cuppa mud, I think,” he says, and slides over to the counter.</p><p>Eddie’s eyes stay glued on him for a few lingering moments. It’s weird but it just feels <em>good </em>to look at Richie—his unruly hair, his hunched shoulders, his glasses that keep sliding down his nose as he inspects the pastry display. The phrase <em>a sight for sore eyes </em>has never felt so true until just now.</p><p>
  <em>“Ahem.”</em>
</p><p>Eddie jolts, whipping his head toward the sound. Ben and Mike are wearing identical knowing smirks, Mike glancing between Eddie and Richie.</p><p>“What?” Eddie asks indignantly.</p><p>Mike chuckles. “As Stan would say, ‘Could you <em>be </em>more in love with him?’”</p><p>Heat rushes to Eddie’s face. “Keep it down, would you!?” he hisses, glaring hard. “Jesus Christ, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”</p><p>Ben cocks his head. “What?”</p><p>Oh god, how could he let <em>that </em>slip!? The blush in Eddie’s cheeks must be a fucking <em>beacon </em>right now. He huffs anxiously, glancing over his shoulder. Shit, Richie’s paying for his coffee, he doesn’t have much time. He leans even closer, angrily whispering, “If I hadn’t been trying to deal with my… <em>you-know-what</em>, I wouldn’t have <em>you-know-what</em> and then Richie wouldn’t have <em>you-know-what</em> and I wouldn’t be stuck <em>you-know-where</em> living with <em>you-know-who</em>!”</p><p>Ben blinks, drumming his fingers on his mug. “Wow. I have never felt like I know less than I do right now.”</p><p>“Richie,” Mike calls, making Eddie look over his shoulder. “You’re not gonna come sit with us?”</p><p>Richie’s shoulders jump up to his ears. He looks like he was caught trying to sneak out to a party. Eddie would know; he remembers Richie’s “I was trying to sneak out to a party” face from high school. It makes his chest ache.</p><p>“Uhh…” Richie’s eyes dart unsubtly to Eddie before returning to Mike. “You sure?”</p><p>“Of course,” Mike says easily, gesturing to the chair across the coffee table from him.</p><p>“Ah, okay,” Richie breathes, relaxing minutely as he makes for the seat. “I didn’t know if…”</p><p>“Don’t be stupid,” Eddie mutters with a frown, burying his nose in his latte. “You moved out. It’s not like we broke up.”</p><p>Richie’s movements stutter as he sinks down into the chair, and Eddie feels frustrated heat rise to his face. When is this finally going to stop being weird? Things haven’t been so weird between him and Richie since… since Eddie got engaged to Myra, for fuck’s sake.</p><p>“Yeah, you’re right,” Richie chuckles lightly. “It’s not like we agreed to live together forever. We’re not Bert and Ernie.”</p><p>“You were more like Felix and Oscar,” Mike quips with a grin.</p><p>“Fuck off,” Eddie says, at the same time Richie lets out a pleased guffaw.</p><p>“Oh my god, that’s exactly what we were like,” he laughs, slapping the table. “Did you tell them about the silverware, Eds? Or the toothbrush?”</p><p>“He did not,” Ben says, before Eddie can answer. He’s put on an affable smile, looking between them expectantly, and Eddie can practically hear what he’s thinking: <em>Maybe if we joke about it, they’ll be able to make up.</em></p><p>Eddie gives him a half-hearted glare despite the gratitude warming his gut.</p><p>“Silverware?” Ben continues curiously. “Toothbrush? Sounds like there’s a story there.”</p><p>Sheepishly, Eddie lifts his eyes to Richie’s. They’re already on him, just as shy.</p><p>“Uh, you wanna tell it, Eds?” he asks, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I think the prosecution gets to go first.”</p><p>Eddie snorts and rolls his eyes, heaving a dramatic sigh as he sets his latte down on the table. “Fine,” he agrees. “But one question first, to you two.” He eyes Ben and Mike. “Do you think Gunther licks all the mugs here clean himself or does he have a whole fleet of waiters to lick them, too?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It’s so easy, in the end. Eddie starts telling the story of the licked silverware, and Richie interjects with half-assed excuses and explanations. Eddie knocks them away like they’re nothing, all painted-on scowls in response to Richie’s joyful, tail-wagging smiles that are only stoked by Eddie’s obvious (feigned) frustration. </p><p>So easy. It’s like nothing ever happened at all.</p><p>Ben has to leave, and then Mike, but Eddie and Richie spare them barely a glance. They’re deep in an argument about… <em>something</em>, Eddie hardly knows what, other than that he cares <em>deeply </em>but also not at all, because he and Richie are talking again.</p><p>Eventually, though, he has to ask, “So how’s the new place?”</p><p>The question doesn’t <em>hurt </em>like it has every other time he’s thought the words in his own head for the past month, but it still makes Richie’s face fall just a tad, still dampens the mood ever so slightly. But they bull their way past it, both as stubbornly committed to moving past the problem as they once were to letting it stand in their way.</p><p>Richie gives a shrug and a half-smile. “Ehh, it’s all right,” he says, rubbing the skin of his elbow. “Rent’s kind of a lot, actually, and it’s not really any closer to work, but— oh,” he pauses, lifting his head with a jerk, “I forgot you haven’t been over yet. You wanna see it?”</p><p>Something flips nervously in Eddie’s stomach. <em>Does </em>he want to see it? It might be weird. Might feel bad to see how Richie lives on his own, how they’re different from the ways he lived with Eddie. Not to mention the butterflies that inherently flutter in his stomach whenever Eddie is in space that’s only <em>Richie’s</em>. He hasn’t felt them for ages, but they definitely made themselves known when he was still living with Myra.</p><p>But they’re getting along for the first time in over a month. Eddie can’t let that end just yet.</p><p>He makes a show of checking his watch, squinting over it and pursing his lips, like he has anywhere to be other than in his own apartment wondering what small mammal Patrick might be skinning in his room. “Uhh,” he hums. “...Yeah, sure, why not?”</p><p>“Bitchin’,” Richie says, pumping a fist. He stands to gather his coat and his used dishes to be returned to the counter; Eddie follows suit. “You know, you’re getting better at that.”</p><p>“At what?”</p><p>“Pretending you have something better to do.”</p><p>“Fuck off!”</p><p>They have to take the subway to get to Richie’s place, something that Eddie kind of figured would be the case but is still saddened by.</p><p>“Kind of a hike,” Richie chuckles, when they’re smushed together in the train car. “Sorry ’bout that.”</p><p>“’Sfine,” Eddie mutters, trying to ignore how Richie’s long, lightly haired fingers easily wrap around the bar at his eye level. They’re so close he’s hyper aware of just how much he would have to crane his neck to meet his gaze, how close their faces would be if he did. So he doesn’t; he just watches his own fingertips drum on the bar.</p><p>“It’s kinda fun, though. The other day a woman ‘accidentally’ sat on my hand, so.” Richie disengages from the bar briefly to do the air-quotes, and sways into Eddie’s space, his coat brushing Eddie’s with a soft swish before he grabs the bar again, even closer to Eddie’s hand than before. His knuckles flex. “Pretty titillating,” he finishes with a lame grin, tilted down into Eddie’s face.</p><p>Heat blooms on Eddie’s cheeks. He swallows hard. “How often have you been making it down to Central Perk?”</p><p>“Maybe, like, once a week?”</p><p>“Oh.” Eddie frowns. That’s a far cry from the five or six days he used to spend there weekly.</p><p>“Yeah…” Richie chews a lip, the smile falling from his face. “Sometimes I feel like— Oh, here’s our stop.” He flashes another grin and makes his way to the door, Eddie on his heels.</p><p>Eddie supposes that the saving grace of Richie’s new apartment building is that it’s so close to the subway, less than a block away. It’s less than five minutes before they’re walking through the revolving doors and greeting the man at the front desk, who gives Richie a friendly wave as they pass through the lobby to the bank of elevators.</p><p>“Front desk guy, huh?” Eddie asks, one eyebrow quirked. “Think you’re fancy now, Tozier?”</p><p>“Yeah, I feel like I live in Nakatomi Plaza,” Richie replies with a grin.</p><p>“Nakatomi Plaza was an executive building, no one <em>lived </em>there,” Eddie retorts, as they enter the pristine elevator. He catches a glimpse of himself cutting a hand through the air in the mirrored walls; despite his tone and gestures, his cheeks are red, a smile tugging at his mouth as his eyes are drawn to Richie. His stomach clenches in embarrassment at the sight.</p><p>As apparently Stan would say, Could he <em>be </em>more in love with him!?</p><p>But Richie only laughs, punching a button before the doors close. “People definitely lived there,” he answers cheerily. “People <em>do </em>live there. Me. I do.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie grumbles. “As soon as these doors open, I’m turning around and catching the next elevator down. I swear to god, I am.”</p><p>It’s an empty threat, of course; Eddie does no such thing, even though Richie turns to him as they exit and says, gesturing to the elevator call button with a grin, “Shall I, Mr. McClane?” and Eddie almost punches the button his damn self just to wipe the smug smirk off Richie’s face.</p><p>He doesn’t, though. He punches Richie’s arm instead, which just gets Richie laughing as Eddie trails him down the hallway.</p><p>“All right, here we go,” Richie says outside of #727. He turns to look at Eddie as he twists the key in the door. “<em>Willkommen a casa de Richie</em>.”</p><p>“Pretty sure that’s not right.”</p><p>“I dunno, Eds, I had a dream I was a flight attendant once.”</p><p>The hot lick of frustration that spikes through Eddie at that comment dovetails perfectly with the reveal of Richie’s solo apartment.</p><p>“Tada!” Richie says, sweeping his arms out.</p><p>“Wow,” Eddie drawls, taking in the sights. Marble animals, arcade cabinets, some weird fucking water feature for no good reason… Gaudy, gaudy, gaudy. “I didn’t know there was a Liberace House of Crap outlet store up here.”</p><p>Richie snickers, shucking off his coat and holding out a hand for Eddie’s. “Just try not to make any eye contact,” he warns. “The jaguars take it as a sign of aggression.”</p><p>Eddie snorts as he begins to move through the apartment. If he ignores how under-furnished and over-accessorized it is, it’s actually pretty nice. Clean marble floors, nice wall fixtures... it even has a huge wall of windows with a gorgeous view of the sun setting over the city.</p><p>Not to mention…</p><p>“I can’t <em>believe </em>you bought <em>Street Fighter</em>,” Eddie laughs, running his fingertips over the buttons. They’re worn, not nearly as glossy as they would be new, the paint surely rubbed away by countless sweaty, desperate fingers. “How much did this cost you?”</p><p>“Oh, let’s not talk about money, Edward, it’s so vulgar,” Richie replies in his Katharine Hepburn voice, sidling up beside him. His cheeks are red from the chill air, his hair a mess; the way he flashes his lopsided grin has heat rising in Eddie’s stomach. “Unless you want to talk about how much money you’re gonna owe me after I kick your ass.”</p><p>The heat in his stomach sears and bubbles into something Eddie hasn’t felt in far too long, something that used to be his and Richie’s bread and butter, the thing they could <em>always </em>bond over, the thing Eddie could always use as an excuse to get close, closer, far too close to the gawky boy, the lanky teenager, the tall, dumbass man who owns Eddie’s equally dumbass heart.</p><p><em>Competition</em>.</p><p>Eddie clenches a challenging fist and answers through gritted teeth, “Fat fucking chance, Tozier!”</p><p>Richie kicks his ass. Of course he kicks his ass—he owns the fucking cabinet. There’s nothing fucking special or exciting about him winning when he owns the fucking cabinet, and Eddie makes sure he knows it.</p><p>So the bet gets doubled, and alcohol gets involved, because Eddie’s always been better at playing games drunk than Richie has. Richie’s reaction time tanks immediately, and Eddie gets to crow about his win until Richie tries to shove Eddie’s head inside his hoodie, the way he used to in high school, and Eddie yells and spits with fury, his face overheating.</p><p>They play, and drink, and play some more. And it feels just like old times. Not even times when they were living together but <em>older </em>times, when they were still in Derry. Before Eddie’s mom died, when being around Richie was just about the only thing that made him feel free.</p><p>“All right all right all right, forget money,” Richie slurs, flapping a hand while he leans heavily on the cabinet. “If I win, you have tooo…” He drums his fingers on the console for a second before snapping them, and Eddie knows it’s all for show and he hates how much he loves that about Richie. “You have to talk to me whenever I call you from the toilet phone for a whole <em>month</em>!”</p><p>“Ew, what the fuck, Richie? Like I haven’t heard you shit enough times already in our lives.”</p><p>“That’s my perversion, Eds,” Richie says with a grin. “Normally I gotta pay a dollar a minute for someone to listen to me shit, these days.”</p><p>“The way you spend your fuckin’ money,” Eddie grumbles, kicking at an ugly ceramic dog with its nose in the air. It wobbles, and Eddie almost wants it to fall.</p><p>“Hey, be nice to Pat,” Richie scolds him, rushing over to run his hand over the dog’s sleek head.</p><p>“Pat the dog,” Eddie deadpans, unamused.</p><p>Richie laughs enough for both of them, draping himself over Pat while he makes a stupid honking sound that makes Eddie’s heart clench.</p><p>“Yeah, well, if<em> I </em>win,” he starts boldly, and then fizzles out. He bites his lip, his mind reaching for what he could challenge Richie to, what he could possibly demand of him, but every thread he pulls at is attached to the same thing. “If I win,” he says again, his voice cracking, “you have to move back in with me.”</p><p>Richie freezes, the laughter cut off in his throat. “You want—” He straightens, clumsily shoving his smudged glasses up his nose. “But you have a roommate.”</p><p>“I hate him,” Eddie says without hesitation.</p><p>“Ahh, but everyone hates their roommate,” Richie says. He looks away with an easy shrug, like he’s giving Eddie an out. “At least a little. Just for being in their space.”</p><p>“I didn’t before. I didn’t when it was you.” Eddie frowns at the skeptical noise Richie makes. “Did you seriously think I hated you? Even a little?”</p><p>“No! No, no… I mean, only when I French kissed the spoons.”</p><p>“I didn’t hate you then.”</p><p>Richie grins. “What about with the toothbrush?”</p><p>“Nope, not then either.”</p><p>“Okayyy, but what about with Charlie Goatee-Face McFucksalot, I know you had to’ve hated me then.”</p><p>“No, I still didn’t <em>hate </em>you, Richie, what the fuck,” Eddie sputters, incredulous. “Are you being serious right now?”</p><p>Richie just tilts his head, a noncommittal answer. It makes Eddie see red.</p><p>“What the hell!” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “How could you possibly think that? After all we’ve been through!”</p><p>“Whoa, whoa,” Richie chuckles, holding out his hands placatingly. “It’s not that big a deal, Eds, all right? It’s not like I ever really… <em>fully </em>thought that… okay?”</p><p>“You think I’m a prick,” Eddie says, his hands landing on his hips. He nods sharply, cocking a hip out. “That’s what it is. You think I’m a purebred, grade-A asshole, don’t you?”</p><p>Richie’s face does a quick contortion, like he doesn’t know if it’s a trick question or not. His eyes sweep over Eddie’s posture. “Umm,” he says hesitantly, “I mean, <em>yeah</em>, I do, but that’s—”</p><p>“Of course you do! Because how else could you think I would hate you? Hate the person who has taken me in not once but <em>twice</em>! Given me a fucking <em>home</em>, a place to lay my fuckin’ <em>head</em>, Richie! What the <em>fuck</em>—”</p><p>“No-no-no, not like that, man!” Richie’s waving his hands desperately, his fingers a flesh-colored blur. “I meant… you’re an asshole, but so am I! That’s why we, y’know, get along so—”</p><p>“Well, so what was it then?” Eddie interrupts, unable to help himself. “What was it about <em>this </em>fight, <em>this </em>time? Nothing’s ever made us stop speaking to each other for that long before.”</p><p>“Not since Myra,” Richie points out quietly.</p><p>“Myra was different,” says Eddie, with a dismissive slice of his hand through the air. “She— She monopolized my time, didn’t want me to have any friends… That was <em>different</em>. That wasn’t a fight between us. Not like this.”</p><p>“Fight? Eddie—” Richie spins away helplessly. “Eddie, this was not because of some argument we had, all right? I just— I wanted to live on my own! Is that so crazy?”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>They stare at each other—Richie confused, Eddie insistent. He plants his feet.</p><p>“Yes, it is,” he says again. “It’s crazy. Because you pay more, you live farther away from <em>all </em>of your friends, and you decorated your place like you’re some sort of <em>depressed… </em>disgraced... former zookeeper!”</p><p>“Hey, I left the profession in good standing!” Richie retorts without missing a beat. “Parrot testimony isn’t legally admissible in court.”</p><p>Laughter chokes Eddie for just a second as the words register, and then spews forth unbidden. He looks heavenward in exasperation even as his shoulders are shaking with it.</p><p>Ugh— fucking— <em>Richie</em>.</p><p>When Eddie’s incredulous rage again overcomes his urge to laugh—and it doesn’t take long; he’s known Richie almost his whole life and the muscle is well developed—he squares his shoulders and folds his arms back over his chest. He glares heavily at Richie, whose eyes clearly want to skitter away. He seems to force them to hesitantly meet Eddie’s weighty gaze.</p><p>“So you just wanted to live on your own,” he says neutrally.</p><p>Richie chews a lip. “’Swhat I said.”</p><p>“And you just <em>happened </em>to decide this… on that night.”</p><p>They both know what night he’s talking about, no fucking need to clarify.</p><p>“I mean… the thought had occurred to me once or twice before.”</p><p>“But never seriously until that night.”</p><p>“Not to my recollection, your honor.”</p><p>“So you admit it then. That night was the reason you moved out!”</p><p>“I’ll admit that that night made me think perhaps we <em>both </em>would benefit from having some freedom to use our common spaces with our individual friends the way we’d like!” And Richie gestures furiously to his room of animal statues, as though <em>this </em>is what he’s been longing to do with his living space and Eddie was only holding him back.</p><p>Eddie wants to laugh. In any almost other situation he <em>would </em>laugh. But he’s too wound up, too triumphant, too terrified to laugh, because if it really <em>was </em>that night, then...</p><p>“Then I gotta assume that…” Eddie’s palms smack down to his thighs in exasperation, with finality. “...that it really <em>is </em>the gay thing!” </p><p>Richie leans his head back and blinks rapidly, the smile falling from his face. It’s like he’s been punched in the nose. His black brows knit together. “Eds, what—? No. No, it’s not—”</p><p>“Then what?” Eddie cuts in helplessly, because he doesn’t <em>want </em>it to be that but it’s the only— it’s all he can— “What other fucking excuse could you <em>possibly</em> have, Richie?”</p><p>Richie’s shoulders slump, and he gives a rueful half-smile as he murmurs, almost to himself, “I mean, the fact that you can’t even fathom what it could be makes me <em>really</em> not wanna say…”</p><p>“What does <em>that </em>mean!?” Eddie demands, leaning in as his mind spins through the most incredible of possibilities. “Did— did you <em>kill </em>someone?”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>“Hurt, rob? Are you dealing drugs?”</p><p>“No, no...”</p><p>“Are you a <em>spy</em>?”</p><p>“No! I wish.”</p><p>“What, then? <em>What? </em>Are you some kind of immortal from <em>Interview with the Vampire</em>? Do you owe money to the mob? What is it, Richie? Why? <em>Why </em>could you <em>possibly </em>not want to live with me any—”</p><p>“Because I’m in love with you!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i’m <a href="https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_">@tempestbreak_</a> on twitter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The One Where Richie and Eddie… You Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s very still in the apartment, all of a sudden.</p><p>For a long, stretching moment, Eddie’s jaw clicking shut is the only sound either of them makes.</p><p>Richie could let the moment linger, and he almost does. It’s something that’s been bubbling inside him for who knows how long—<em>decades</em>, maybe, at this point—and he could let it hang in the air like a burning banner.</p><p>But even stronger than his dizzy, terrifying catharsis is his need to fill the silence.</p><p>So, “Y-yeah,” he breathes shakily. “Yeah, that’s right.”</p><p>Eddie watches him warily, eyes wide.</p><p>“Yep,” Richie sighs, feeling like his breath is leaving his body along with these words. He gestures limply, lethargically emphatic. “Yep. I am in love with you, Eddie. So… <em>ha</em>.”</p><p><em>So, ha, </em>is not really the way Richie ever imagined ending that declaration, but his brain was either giving him that or <em>in accordance with the prophecy</em>, and he thinks he chose the right one for once.</p><p>Still, Eddie is silent, his expression indecipherable despite how Richie’s gaze trains on it. He longs to break the silence, but he longs even more desperately for Eddie to. Until then, he feels suspended, crystallized.</p><p>Then Eddie seems to sway, almost falling forward, and Richie’s heart leaps in concern as Eddie stumbles the one, two, three steps between them and yanks Richie’s mouth down to his.</p><p>They’re kissing.</p><p>They’re <em>kissing</em>.</p><p>Eddie’s lips are hard and dry on his, and his hands are fisted in Richie’s shirt collar, and he tastes like gin, like the best thing Richie’s ever tasted. So Richie kisses him incredulously back, his blood screaming in his ears, his hands cupping Eddie’s arms to hold him there, hold him holding Richie, because Eddie keeps breaking away and swooping back in, and it takes Richie a moment to realize that Eddie is cursing him under his breath with every kiss.</p><p>“Motherfucking — dumbass — asshole,” he pants, “fuckin’ — teach you to — fuck with me.”</p><p>He leaves Richie no room to protest, no room to answer, so Richie doesn’t try. All he does is kiss him like a dying man, like he’s drowning and trying to pull Eddie under with him, and every muttered, angry curse is Eddie gasping for air.</p><p>Then Eddie shoves him back, holding him still to glare up into Richie’s fogged-up glasses. His cheeks are red, his mouth even redder, an angry smear of scarlet in Eddie’s fearsome, familiar face. “It’s your fuckin’ fault I’m living with a serial killer,” he growls.</p><p>Richie blows his lips out in defenseless surprise. “I— I don’t know what—”</p><p>“I mean, you couldn’ta fuckin’ said something earlier?” Eddie goes on, furious. “When the fuck did this happen?”</p><p>“...You want, like, a year?”</p><p>“Oh, so it can be measured in years!”</p><p>“W-well…” Richie tugs at his collar. Eddie’s tone is hard to interpret other than <em>mad</em>. “I guess I could do the math to convert it to hours and minutes, but I’d need a calculator…”</p><p>“What the fuck, Richie!” Eddie’s voice goes high, his eyes flashing as he shoves him hard in the chest. Richie’s abruptly reminded of the many, <em>many </em>times Eddie did the exact same thing when they were growing up, always with the same spark of lightning straight to Richie’s heart. Like a defibrillator. “When I was married to Myra!?”</p><p>Richie swallows hard, wincing as he admits, “Uh… yeah…”</p><p>“And before then?”</p><p>“Yeah…” </p><p>“College? High school? When my mom died!?” </p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, all of the above.”</p><p>Eddie pauses in his interrogation, his lips pressed together so tightly they’ve practically disappeared. He seizes Richie’s shirt once more in trembling hands, pinning him with his gaze. “Were—” he starts, voice breaking, “—were you ever gonna tell me?”</p><p>Richie’s heart clenches painfully. He wets his lips, now drying uncomfortably from the lack of Eddie’s against them, and gives an abortive shrug. “...Scared to,” is all he croaks out between his teeth.</p><p>“Well, what the fuck do you think I was, then?” Eddie demands. “I’m— I got div— ...I didn’t even know you were gay, Richie!” he exclaims. “You knew I was! You didn’t think that was your fucking opening!?”</p><p>“I-I know! I fucked up, okay? I missed about a bajillion chances—”</p><p>“Try fuckin’ double that!”</p><p>“—And yeah, when you got divorced and came out, I thought, <em>Maybe</em>. Of course I did! I thought about it fuckin’ constantly, man! But I also thought… you were going through a lot, and you didn’t need someone throwing himself at you. You needed a friend, and a place to live—”</p><p>“I’ve got friends! I coulda found fucking anywhere, Richie, I didn’t <em>need </em>to live with you! I wasn’t some little orphan Annie, Jesus fucking Christ—”</p><p>“—Well, <em>I </em>wanted to live with <em>you</em>! Okay!? I barely saw you when you were with Myra—”</p><p>“Coulda fuckin’ solved that if you’d, oh, I dunno, said <em>anything</em>—”</p><p>“—and I was so goddamn stupid in love with you that I would—”</p><p>“‘Goddamn stupid’ is fucking right!”</p><p>“—do anything to get you to stay, even drink gross, unnatural, <em>pulpless</em>—”</p><p>“Shut up!” Eddie snarls.</p><p>Richie blinks in surprise, his words twisting in his throat.</p><p>Eddie is inches from his face. “Shut up, shut up, <em>shut up</em>!” he shouts.</p><p>The only sound is of Richie’s teeth clicking together and their shared, heaving breaths.</p><p>“Do you have <em>any idea</em> how much I fuckin’ hate orange juice!?”</p><p>It feels like the words hit Richie splat in the face and drip off in fat, confusing drops. “You… you hate…”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“But you buy it every other week.”</p><p>“For you. Because you like it.”</p><p>“But you don’t get the kind<em> I </em>like. You get the kind <em>you </em>like…”</p><p>“I get the kind I can <em>stand</em>.”</p><p>Richie’s brain is working valiantly but only beginning to make the connections. “But… but the pulp…”</p><p>“It’s called a compromise,” Eddie retorts, crossing his arms. “I would rather just get the vitamin D pills, but they put it in the orange juice, and you like orange juice, so…” He huffs hard. “So, ha.”</p><p>Richie’s heart flutters. “So, ha,” he echoes, and somehow his chest begins to lift, something light and airy beginning to sing in his veins.</p><p>“Yeah,” Eddie says, and his hand shoots out to tangle in Richie’s shirt once more, jerking him forward, “but now I’m stuck with fuckin’ full-pulp orange juice and free-range squirrel meat in my fridge, and that’s all your fault for not fuckin’ saying anything for our whole entire lives, you dumbass!”</p><p>Their lips are practically brushing, Eddie’s breath cascading hot over Richie’s slightly open mouth, not even inches away but millimeters. And if Eddie’s so mad at Richie for not saying anything, for not taking initiative… well, then Richie figures he might as well start now.</p><p>He steels himself and closes the distance.</p><p>Eddie’s lips are slightly softer this time, slightly fonder, though still with that undertone of hard frustration that only serves to remind Richie he’s kissing Eddie fucking Kaspbrak for the first time in his life. He couldn’t mind if he tried, the lack of softness—Richie is fond and overwhelmed enough for both of them.</p><p>Eddie’s hands are still twined in his shirt, holding Richie forcefully against him, and Richie’s grateful for it. He needs an anchor, as his surroundings begin to swirl around them, in the eye of the storm.</p><p>Within moments, Eddie begins to move them. Stumbling backward, he tugs Richie against him so their lips stay connected, making his ungraceful way to the couch. Richie does his best to follow.</p><p>“Gah— <em>Fuck</em>,” Eddie spits, wrenching his mouth from Richie’s to glare at something. Almost instantly, he spins back around to turn his angry scowl at Richie. “Just how many fuckin’ dog statues do you need!?”</p><p>Richie shrugs helplessly. “Didn’t want Pat to get lonely. They’re pack animals, Eds.”</p><p>Eddie mutters something under his breath that sounds like, <em>Swear to Christ, the shit I fuckin’ put up with, </em>before he maneuvers Richie around the porcelain Great Dane (whose muzzle <em>is </em>right at crotch height and must have bumped Eddie right in the ol’ <em>be</em>hind—which is very species-appropriate, if Richie does say so himself).</p><p>Of course, Richie can’t say much of anything just now, because Eddie Kaspbrak is shoving him down on his red leather sofa and climbing into his lap like he owns him.</p><p>He does, and it’s sexy as hell.</p><p>Eddie’s lips move hard and fast against Richie’s, claiming, almost branding with how hot they are. Richie kisses him back dumbly, his head still swimming with the whirlpool of how they got here. He can barely think through the fog, let alone kiss Eddie the way he’s kissing him back—with anything like purpose instead of simply incredulity.</p><p>Then Eddie’s mouth leaves his to nose his jaw aside and kiss down his neck, sucking hard marks into the stubble. Against the sensitive skin, Eddie growls, “Fuckin’ touch me, already.”</p><p>His tone shoots electricity through Richie’s veins.</p><p>His hands fly to the small of Eddie’s back and cling there. Beneath his fingertips, Eddie’s soft, cool dress shirt bunches and stretches as he arches and rounds his back, bending himself so that he can bite at the soft place under Richie’s ear. Richie gasps, his hips bucking up against his will. Embarrassed heat blooms in his gut as Eddie laughs.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” he sneers, nipping at an earlobe. It only makes Richie pant harder, hips twitching beneath Eddie’s ass. “You think so?”</p><p>“N-no,” Richie breathes, pulse racing. <em>God, </em>he doesn’t want Eddie to think he’s gonna push too hard. He’s just happy they’re kissing, they don’t need to… “I don’t— I’m not trying to—”</p><p>Eddie’s hand seizes his chin, cutting him off. “Well, you better <em>start</em> trying to,” he says, and slams their mouths together again, his tongue sliding past Richie’s slack, shocked lips to brush against his.</p><p>It’s a tightrope that he has to walk, Richie decides as he snakes his arms around Eddie and yanks him closer—the fine line between thinking too much and thinking too little. But when Eddie lets out a small, triumphant moan and shoves his hands under the hem of Richie’s t-shirt to knead at his soft, hairy chest, Richie decides it’s a tightrope worth walking. Even if he feels like he’ll be dangling by a mere thread of it by the end of the night.</p><p>Eddie’s hands are hot against him, fingernails scratching through his chest hair. He’s starting to squirm in Richie’s lap, sliding his ass over Richie’s crotch, and Richie is becoming increasingly aware of the tightness of his jeans, of how Eddie is almost grinding against his growing erection. It takes him a moment to realize that Eddie is trying to ask him a question.</p><p>“H-huh?” he stammers.</p><p>Eddie’s voice is rough, his chest flushed when he pulls back to meet Richie’s bleary gaze. “Have you ever done this with a guy before?” he asks, eyes dark and probing.</p><p>Richie nods jerkily. He hopes Eddie won’t ask him any more specifics, though—his inexperience is frankly embarrassing, and his past sexual encounters were mainly concentrated in the five-year time period when Eddie was married to Myra. He hasn’t so much as kissed another man since Eddie moved in.</p><p>“What do you like?”</p><p>“Umm…” This is where the tightrope walk he’s been doing kind of breaks down because all his brain is giving him is: “Having sex.”</p><p>Eddie stares at him like he’s an idiot. Which, he supposes, he is. “No shit, numbnuts,” he says, flicking him lightly in the temple. “I meant pitching or catching.”</p><p>“Outfield,” Richie replies instinctively.</p><p>Eddie sighs, long-suffering. “You are the worst,” he says fondly. “Giving or receiving, Richie. You like having a dick in you or putting your dick in someone else?”</p><p>“Oh.” Duh. He blinks, brain whirring to try to provide an answer. His experience is so limited, and it never felt like <em>this</em>. This overwhelming, all-consuming fire of incredulous joy at having Eddie in his lap. He’s struck suddenly by the desperate urge to do anything, say anything, to keep him there.</p><p>“I like both,” Eddie says bluntly, as though reading Richie’s mind. “In case you were trying to, like, say the <em>right </em>answer. There isn’t one.”</p><p>“Oh,” Richie says again, heat rushing to his face.</p><p>He’s obviously seen evidence of Eddie enjoying <em>receiving</em>—and that was enough to feature prominently and intrusively in Richie’s masturbation fantasies for the past several weeks—but the idea of Eddie <em>giving </em>it to someone… his face flushed, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, hips snapping forward…</p><p>He swallows hard. “I do, too. I think.”</p><p>“You think,” Eddie murmurs thoughtfully, a fingertip toying with a nipple in a way that has Richie sweating. “What are you feeling tonight?”</p><p>“A-anything,” Richie gasps, before he can berate himself for just how desperate he sounds. “Everything.”</p><p>Eddie’s eyes darken at that. His fingers tighten, twisting Richie’s nipple so his eyes flutter shut. “Fuck, okay,” Eddie breathes, his hips shifting restlessly in Richie’s lap. “How many times can you go?”</p><p>Uhh… what?</p><p>Richie’s brain does not comprehend this question. His expression must give that away, because Eddie huffs in frustration.</p><p>“How many orgasms can you achieve during sexual intercourse?” he enunciates primly, his voice dripping with exasperation.</p><p>Richie’s eyebrows pinch in confusion, a bewildered laugh escaping. “Haa— uh, whaddaya mean? Like… one, right?”</p><p>Eddie lets out a breath that sounds strangely disappointed, which has Richie’s heart pounding with apprehension. “Figured,” Eddie says. “In that case…” and he begins to extricate himself from Richie’s lap.</p><p>“W-wait, what?” Richie stammers, hands tightening on Eddie’s thighs. “Where are you—?”</p><p>“Where’s your lube?” Eddie asks, all business. He moves toward the bathroom, lifting a hand to his shirt to undo the few remaining buttons, and wow, Richie doesn’t know when most of those came undone. Maybe he’s some kind of stealth unbuttoner, like he was hypnotized and responded to some sort of call word.</p><p>“Richie. Lube. Where.”</p><p>This is the shit his brain can think right now, huh.</p><p>“B-bedroom,” Richie says, slowly standing. He has to adjust his pants, his dick painfully hard despite the confusion.</p><p>“Side table?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Eddie disappears into Richie’s darkened bedroom, his loose shirt fluttering behind him. Richie stands dumbly in the living room, staring after him. Should he follow? Is Eddie expecting him to follow? He takes one tentative step…</p><p>Another… </p><p>...And then Eddie reappears, bustling out of the bedroom. “Found it,” he says brusquely, “and some condoms, too.” He tosses the box down on the coffee table and turns to Richie with a smirk. “Unopened, huh?”</p><p>Richie laughs nervously. “Well,” he drawls, “I vowed the day I bought those that I would not open them until I could be with the fair Edward, so…”</p><p>Eddie rolls his eyes. “They better not be fuckin’ expired, then, you lazy ass.” He rips open the plastic and crumples it, but leaves the box on the table for now, apparently. He turns back to Richie, his eyes sweeping over him, and his expression goes briefly soft. His hands lift to Richie’s arms, sliding gently over to his chest. Their eyes meet, and Eddie’s are shy but possessive. “I’m gonna fuck you, okay?” he murmurs softly.</p><p>Richie’s heartbeat throbs simultaneously in his throat and in his dick. “O-okay,” he stammers eagerly.</p><p>Eddie’s smile is fond, suddenly almost tender, as he threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of Richie’s neck. “I’m in love with you, too, by the way,” he says. “I don’t think I said so.”</p><p>Richie could cry. Shit.</p><p>“Well, you got all the important stuff out first,” he tries to joke. “Where’s the lube, who’s fucking who… and I think there was something about squirrel meat in there somewhere…”</p><p>Eddie’s expression goes stormy. “Please, let’s not talk about squirrel meat right now.”</p><p>“Gotcha. Man meat only.”</p><p>“Shut up and take off your fuckin’ pants.”</p><p>Grinning into Eddie’s scowl, Richie brings his hands to the fly of his jeans, but Eddie’s are somehow already there, like he couldn’t wait for Richie to comply with his order. Their fingers fight with each other briefly before Eddie smacks Richie’s away and rips open the button and zipper himself and shoves them down, kneeling on the floor to get them around Richie’s calves.</p><p>He curses under his breath, palming Richie’s cock through his Bullwinkle boxers. “Shit,” he says.</p><p>Richie smiles shakily. “Is that a good ‘shit’ or a bad ‘shit’?”</p><p>“Good,” Eddie says decisively, squeezing just under the head and making Richie’s eyes roll into the back of his skull. “Good thing I’m fucking you first.”</p><p>Then Eddie’s fingers hook into the waistband of Richie’s boxers and suddenly there’s nothing between his dick and Eddie’s face but air.</p><p>“Mm, fuck,” Eddie hums, catching his bobbing cock in one hand and pumping it softly. He licks a long stripe up from the thatch of pubic hair at the base to the red, leaking tip, and Richie’s knees nearly buckle, heat shooting down his spine. “Can’t wait to feel this inside me.”</p><p>Richie chuckles, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “K-kinda sending me mixed messages, Eds…” </p><p>Eddie looks up, his eyes big and dark and his smile wolfish. “How do you want me?” he asks, his hand still moving firmly on Richie’s straining dick. “I’m thinking I fuck you from behind—”</p><p>
  <em>“Yes.”</em>
</p><p>They both pause, staring at each other. Richie’s face goes hot with embarrassment when Eddie quirks an eyebrow. “Liked that idea, huh?”</p><p>Richie bites a lip, nodding wordlessly. His heart is pounding against his ribs.</p><p>Eddie gives his dick one last, long lick that has Richie’s eyelids fluttering before he stands up again and nods. “Get on the couch,” he rumbles, eyes dark and keen. “Facing away.”</p><p>Richie can’t help but give a salute as he kicks his crumpled pants off his ankles. “Sir, yes, sir.”</p><p>After ripping off his remaining clothing items—shirt, socks, glasses, if they count—Richie climbs onto the couch, his knees digging into the squeaky, shiny leather. He rests his elbows on the back of it, leaning over so his forehead rests on his folded hands. It’s a strangely exposed position—he can’t see Eddie or how Eddie is reacting to seeing <em>him</em>—and it has his heart racing just a little.</p><p>Then one of Eddie’s palms comes to rest on his ass cheek, kneading softly as the wet, warm fingers of the other hand slide over his hole.</p><p>“Oh, <em>fuck</em>,” he gasps, thighs already shaking.</p><p>“Relax,” Eddie murmurs, spreading his ass with one hand as a fingertip circles his rim.</p><p>“Easier said than done,” Richie retorts breathlessly, but he tries to focus on letting go of the tension he feels from the wild, overarching awareness that it’s <em>Eddie</em> touching his ass.</p><p>“Better,” Eddie says, and slips gently inside.</p><p>Richie bites a lip, holding back a moan. He’s already sweating, gonna be a complete mess by the time Eddie’s even gotten a second one in. He tries to focus on the simple sensation of light, slick friction on his rim, on the delicious pressure of a finger inside him—tries to block out the very real fact that Eddie is the one doing it.</p><p>It’s both a thrill and a weight, to be doing this with Eddie. Two thoughts war in his chest: <em>This is going to be amazing</em> and <em>But what if it’s not?</em></p><p>“You’re so tight,” Eddie mutters, pulling back his finger so it’s resting against Richie’s entrance. There’s no disapproval in his tone, but Richie can’t help the jolt of dismay it sends through him.</p><p>“Try another?” he suggests anxiously. “Maybe you can pry me open. Like, pinch both sides and pull it apart.”</p><p>“What the hell, Richie, you’re not a bag of fuckin’ Ruffles,” Eddie retorts, tapping his finger on his hole.</p><p>Richie barks a laugh as tingles shoot up his spine. “Sour cream and onion,” he calls over his shoulder.</p><p>“I sure as hell hope not,” Eddie grumbles, and Richie has only a moment to laugh before almost all conscious thought flees him as Eddie spreads his cheeks firmly apart with both hands and buries his face in his ass.</p><p>“Oh<em>hhhmigod</em>,” Richie cries, heat sparking through him as the flat of Eddie’s tongue presses against him. He almost squirms away, his mind reeling. “Eds— Fuck— What—”</p><p>The tongue on him is hot and wet, insistent and frankly kind of outrageous. Eddie Kaspbrak is— Eddie Kaspbrak wants to—</p><p>A shiver runs through his body as the thoughts spin wildly in his head. He can’t help the full-throated moan that shudders through him.</p><p>“Mm, yeah, that’s it,” Eddie pulls away to murmur, his breath hot against Richie’s hole as a finger wiggles back in. “You’re opening up now.”</p><p>“Ed<em>die</em>—”</p><p>The tongue is back, licking around the knuckle of the finger inside him, and Richie grips the back of the couch for dear life. It’s a blur of heat as Eddie stretches him on his tongue and fingers, dragging moans from Richie’s chest that he answers with his own praising hums that have Richie’s cock rock hard and throbbing, dripping precome over the shiny leather.</p><p>After what feels like ages, Eddie pulls back. Richie chances a look over his shoulder and finds him staring greedily down at his hole, three fingers still buried inside him.</p><p>“Think you’re ready for me,” Eddie breathes, bare chest flushed and heaving. Richie has no idea when Eddie lost his shirt and pants, but he’s not surprised he didn’t notice.</p><p>A thrill runs up Richie’s spine, Eddie’s fingers brushing against that spot inside him. He nods, feeling boneless and eager for more.</p><p>Slowly, Eddie edges his fingers out, petting his fingertips hungrily over Richie’s empty hole. “Gonna fill you up,” he murmurs almost lovingly, tracing the edges as his other hand goes to his own briefs and shucks them off. </p><p>Richie’s eyes snap to Eddie’s dick. It’s hard and upward-curving, jutting excitedly from thick, dark curls, and Richie abruptly, fiercely hopes he gets to suck it at some point soon.</p><p>But for now, Eddie is opening the box of condoms and ripping one open, sliding it onto his cock. Anticipation builds steeply in Richie’s chest at the sight of the latex stretching over Eddie’s reddened skin, at what it <em>means</em>, unmistakably.</p><p>Eddie’s about to fuck him.</p><p>Holy shit, holy shit.</p><p>“I know,” Eddie says with a smirk, spreading lube over himself, and apparently Richie said at least some of those thoughts out loud. Oops.</p><p>Well, he’s never had much of a filter, anyway. Why start now?</p><p>His dick covered and slicked up, Eddie angles himself back toward Richie. He reaches out to palm an ass cheek once more, kneading it in a circle as his thumb brushes over his stretched hole. “You look so good,” he says quietly, sliding his other hand lightly over his cock. “Wow.”</p><p>Richie feels the blush on his cheeks. “Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Slowly, Eddie steps up behind him, angling his dick so the tip brushes against Richie’s hole. “Better than I imagined.”</p><p>Surprise rockets through him, surpassed only by the feeling of Eddie’s cockhead settling more firmly against his rim. “You… you imagined this?” he asks breathlessly.</p><p>“’Course,” Eddie replies, his hand running solidly over Richie’s back and sides. His voice is sweet, and slightly sad, when he says, “You’re not the only one who shoulda said something.”</p><p>Richie’s heart clenches as Eddie leans over to press a kiss to his spine. “Eds…” he sighs, eyes prickling.</p><p>“Are you ready for me?”</p><p>“God,” Richie breathes. “The million-dollar question.”</p><p>Eddie huffs a laugh. It fans warmly over his skin, sending goosebumps across it. “I am pretty sick of waiting on you, Tozier,” he teases, rocking forward slightly, and Richie sucks in a breath at the slight, dizzying pressure of Eddie’s cock against his hole. “Leaving it up to you, seems like we’ll be here for months, at least…”</p><p>“Fuck,” Richie grits out, fingers flexing on the couch. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready, please just— <em>ahh...</em>”</p><p>Eddie slides inside him easily, and Richie feels it like an arrow to the heart. Eddie grasps his hips, letting out his own, answering noises to Richie’s overwhelmed moans as he pulls out and pushes back in, starting up a slowly building rhythm that has blood roaring in Richie’s ears.</p><p>“Jesus <em>Christ</em>, you feel as good as you look.” Eddie’s voice is breathy behind him, almost as overwhelmed as Richie feels. “Tell me if you’re getting close, okay?”</p><p>“O-okay,” Richie says, though internally he wonders if he’ll have the wherewithal to do so.</p><p>When he looked at it earlier, Eddie’s cock didn’t <em>look </em>massive, but it certainly feels that way inside him, the way his body hugs it. He feels every slick drag out, every dizzying press in. He’s shaking within moments, gripping the back of the couch to steady himself as he moans.</p><p>“Hnng, fuck,” Eddie gasps behind him, one hand petting feverishly down his side. “You’re still so fuckin’ tight…”</p><p>Richie laughs deliriously, his pulse jumping with every thrust in. “Thought <em>you</em> woulda been, <em>hahh</em>, the tight-ass between the two of us…”</p><p>Eddie practically giggles in response, and it tells Richie just how much <em>his </em>head must be swimming, too. It’s a relief to know they’re both swirling, they’re both giddy and fizzing.</p><p>Then Eddie hits him just right, and Richie’s thoughts spin even higher, sparks popping behind his closed eyes. Heat is rising in him quickly, building on the foundation of Eddie kissing him, touching him… fuck, <em>eating him out</em>, and he still can’t believe that happened… It’s all combining to have Richie’s cock throbbing, blood screaming, breath coming faster and faster as Eddie works him over.</p><p>“Fuck, Eds,” Richie chokes out.</p><p>“<em>Mm, </em>I know.” Eddie lets out a keening noise as he grinds his hips forward. “Hope, <em>nnh</em>, hope you don’t mind if I multitask.”</p><p>That briefly cuts through the fog of arousal clouding Richie’s mind. “What, you gonna, <em>hnn</em>, <em>ah</em>, catch up on your correspondence?” he jokes breathlessly.</p><p>Eddie lets out a strangled, high-pitched laugh. He plants one foot on the couch by Richie’s knee, and the angle inside him changes, and Richie moans so loud he thinks he hears his porcelain animals rattling against each other.</p><p>“Yeah, fuck, I love hearing you, Rich,” Eddie urges him, one hand spreading an ass cheek wide, so wide that Richie feels every incredible tug at his rim. It must feel good for Eddie, too, because the noise he makes next rivals Richie’s in volume and sheer delirium. “Ohh, <em>fuck</em>, yes, <em>god</em>—”</p><p>
  <em>“Hnngh…” </em>
</p><p>“God, I’m not gonna last like this,” Eddie hisses, his thrusts stuttering. “Feels too good, <em>shit</em>…”</p><p>The way Eddie sounds—hungry, desperate, overwhelmed—coupled with the way the head of his cock keeps rubbing over his prostate makes heat spike in Richie’s gut, sending him higher and higher, closer to the edge.</p><p>There’s something he’s supposed to remember about that… </p><p>Then Eddie’s fingers dig harder into the meat of his hips, and his cock thrusts roughly into him, grinding hard over his sweet spot as Eddie gasps and groans, and Richie forgets everything he’s supposed to remember because Eddie is <em>coming</em> and that’s gonna make Richie— oh fuck, that’s getting Richie so—</p><p>Suddenly, Eddie’s hand reaches around and grips the base of his dick hard, hard enough to cut off the swiftly rising orgasm. Richie groans in shocked frustration, whipping his head around.</p><p>Eddie is breathing hard, a sweaty grin on his face when he meets Richie’s eyes. “That was a close one,” he pants.</p><p>Richie nearly swallows his tongue along with the moan he choked off. “Y-yeah…” </p><p>The heck? Did Eddie not actually come? It really seemed like he did, but maybe he just got really close and stopped. But why stop? Are they doing whatever that tantric, Sting-style sex thing is and Richie just didn’t know it?</p><p>Not like he’s mad about it. If he’s gonna have tantric sex with anyone, it might as well be Eddie.</p><p>What a weird fucking night, though, huh?</p><p>Slowly, Eddie loosens his grip on the base of Richie’s cock, bending forward to drop his forehead against Richie’s spine. With a sigh, Richie relaxes beneath him, pressing his face into his forearms.</p><p>Guess they’re gonna catch their breath and go for round two?</p><p>“Nng, fuck,” Eddie murmurs, pressing his lips to Richie’s skin. He slides a hand over Richie’s side, damp with sweat. “You ready to keep going?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Richie says, trying not to let his eagerness show. He’s not on the precipice anymore, but <em>god </em>he’d like to come. His muscles are practically twitching. “You?”</p><p>Eddie chuckles weakly, dropping another kiss on Richie’s shoulder blade. “Oh, yeah. ’Skinda my thing.”</p><p>What does <em>that </em>mean? Richie wonders dizzily. His stomach swoops with a strange excitement. Can Eddie go for hours!? Richie doesn’t think he could keep this up for much longer. But then again, it’s Eddie. He doesn’t think his dick has ever been harder.</p><p>Eddie stamps one last kiss to Richie’s upper back and levers himself up, cool air rushing in over Richie’s sweaty flesh. Richie braces himself eagerly for Eddie to begin to move again.</p><p>But then, to his utter shock, Eddie simply pulls out.</p><p>Richie can’t help the downward twitch of his eyebrows, the spike of confusion that lances through him as the slight pressure of Eddie’s palm on his hip gently turns him so he can sit comfortably on his sofa.</p><p>“Whew,” Eddie breathes, swiping a forearm over his sweaty brow with a laugh. His other hand is at his dick, which is still rock-hard (so apparently he didn’t come), rolling off the condom—yet another sight that has Richie cocking his head like a bewildered dog. Is this part of the Sting Method™? Changing the condom between almost-orgasms? “I know I said I like both,” he says conversationally, “but I actually tend to prefer bottoming.”</p><p>“Oh.” Richie’s stomach swoops anxiously. “Then we could’ve—”</p><p>“Nah, it makes more sense this way,” Eddie says, flapping a hand dismissively. He reaches for another condom, tossing it onto the couch beside Richie. His bleary, blown-out eyes drag over Richie’s body. “Fuck, I can’t wait to get back on you,” he breathes hungrily, and Richie wonders headily what the next position’s gonna be. Missionary? He kind of hopes; that way they could kiss. “But first…”</p><p>He shoves Richie’s knees apart and falls to the floor between them. Before Richie can even register the surprise, Eddie’s mouth is swallowing down his aching cock.</p><p><em>“Fuuuckk,” </em>Richie moans instantly, his hands flying to Eddie’s sweat-damp hair.</p><p>He’s already a hair’s breadth from coming just from the contact of the wet heat of Eddie’s mouth. Does Eddie know that? Does he not realize? How is Richie expected to hold off when Eddie’s throat is practically trying to milk the head of his cock?</p><p>“Fuckfuck<em>fuuuuck</em>,” he moans again, trying to still his twitching hips as Eddie sucks around him sloppily, color high in his cheeks. From the flop of hair over his forehead, to the sensitive furrow of his brow, to the sweat beading at his temple, he looks just as fucked out and on edge as Richie feels.</p><p>Before Richie can get too close again, though, Eddie pulls off with a slurping sound, his tongue lolling for a split second as his dark eyes meet Richie’s.</p><p>“Ready to go again?” he asks, his voice rough.</p><p>Richie feels pinned to the couch, limbs leaden yet alive with need. He couldn’t move if he wanted.</p><p>Fortunately, Eddie seems to understand this, because he doesn’t try to situate him like he did earlier. Instead, he simply climbs to his feet with a self-satisfied smirk and then begins to clamber into Richie’s lap, his own hard cock bobbing just before his face.</p><p>The urge strikes Richie like a lightning bolt. In an instant, he’s slung one arm around the backs of Eddie’s thighs and has hunched over to suck Eddie’s dick into <em>his </em>mouth this time.</p><p>“W-whoa,” Eddie gasps, reeling. He loses his balance, catching himself on the back of the couch. “<em>Gahh, </em>fuck—”</p><p>Richie hums around him, sucking at him eagerly. He tastes like latex and come, which makes no sense because he’s still hard as a rock, the taut head jutting against Richie’s soft palate. He swallows him down, drooling around him, whining when Eddie buries his fingers in his hair and yanks at it.</p><p>“Yeah, <em>mm</em>, god…” he’s moaning above him, his hips thrusting minutely in Richie’s arms. “Fuck yeah, your mouth is so fuckin’ sloppy, Rich, feels so good…”</p><p>Richie’s eyes roll back, his own cock throbbing in his lap. He can feel a big spurt of precome sliding down the shaft to dampen the already slicked-down hair.</p><p>“Fuck, I’m close already,” Eddie gasps, his thighs flexing under Richie’s palms. “Put your fingers in me.” A hand slides down to tap insistently at Richie’s shoulder. “Put your fingers in me, Richie, put them in, put them in, god, <em>please—</em>”</p><p>Richie’s fingers are dry but for the sweat, but when he hurriedly slides them between Eddie’s cheeks, he finds the skin already slick and soft. Incredulous, he shoves two fingers inside Eddie with no warning, and immediately Eddie fucking <em>sobs</em>, trembling as he comes down Richie’s throat.</p><p>Richie’s dick is in agony as Eddie comes down and pulls away, his chest heaving. <em>“Fuck,” </em>he breathes, half-laughing. “Wasn’t expecting that.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Richie says contritely. “I know you wanted to keep going…”</p><p>“We’re not done,” Eddie says. He glances meaningfully to Richie’s cock, standing forcefully between them and practically ready to blast off into space, and grins. “You ready to finally come?”</p><p>Richie looks at him. “Eds,” he says seriously, “this orgasm is, like, twenty years in the making. The question is, are <em>you </em>ready for me to finally unload a metric boatload of jizz all over you?”</p><p>Eddie stares at him.</p><p>“Like, it’s gonna fill the apartment,” Richie goes on. “It could bust out the windows. Pat will certainly drown. It’s gonna be like the last hour of <em>Titanic </em>in here.”</p><p>“You are the worst,” Eddie deadpans, reaching down to circle his cock with his fingers. “You are the worst, and I hate you.”</p><p>Richie simpers, pouting his lip. “I’ll never let go, Jack.”</p><p>“I will,” Eddie answers, and sinks down onto his cock.</p><p>The breath Richie sucks in whistles through his teeth, his heart leaping into his throat. Eddie is so wet and hot and perfectly stretched and, “<em>Fuck, </em>what the fuck,” Richie gasps, fingers flying to Eddie’s waist and digging in for dear life. “What the fuck, what the fuck, when did you—?”</p><p>“I told you I was, <em>hng</em>, multitasking,” Eddie replies breathlessly, immediately kicking his hips up and forward and sucking Richie’s cock inside.</p><p>“I thought men were supposed to suck at that.”</p><p>Eddie huffs a derisive laugh, bouncing on Richie’s dick. “Yeah, well, men aren’t supposed to be able to have multiple orgasms, either, guess the scientists are fuckin’ <em>wrong</em>, aren’t they?”</p><p>Finally, it clicks in Richie’s brain. “You can have multiple orgasms?”</p><p>Pausing, Eddie fixes him with a stare. “What the fuck did you think was happening? I come twice and now I’m riding your dick out of what, the kindness of my heart?”</p><p>“You’re right, shoulda known better,” Richie concedes.</p><p>Eddie laughs fondly yet angrily—the Kaspbrak special. “You’re an idiot.”</p><p>“And you’re a medical marvel,” Richie breathes, and Eddie laughs again, a sound that twists into a strangled moan when Richie thrusts upward into him.</p><p>They move together, bodies hot and slipping against each other over and over, and Richie was joking about the <em>Titanic</em> thing, but he really is close, a string ready to snap. Eddie doesn’t seem much better, moaning openly and flushed down to his belly button, clearly overstimulated and loving the hell out of it. It feels like mere moments and yet years—twenty of them, at least—before Richie is shuddering beneath Eddie, hips jerking up as he spills hot and shaking into the clutch of his body. Whimpering desperately, Eddie wraps a hand around his own dick, and then small spurts of come are joining the sweat and lube smeared through Richie’s chest hair.</p><p>They slump together, breathing hard. For long minutes, Richie floats, petting happily at Eddie’s cooling skin. The air around them begins to feel cold, but Richie can’t bring himself to move. He doesn’t think he could if he wanted to.</p><p>Finally, though, he can’t help but wonder. “What’cha thinkin’ ’bout, Eds?” he slurs, pressing his mouth gently to Eddie’s damp temple.</p><p>To his surprise, Eddie’s response is to let out an angry sigh. “How the <em>fuck </em>are we gonna get rid of Patrick.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno, Eds, you really think this is gonna work?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>. It worked on you, didn’t it? Now come on—”</p><p>“I mean, I’m not complaining…”</p><p>“Shut up and get over here, he’ll be home any minute.”</p><p>The keys jangling in the door have Eddie’s pulse pounding in his ears. He throws himself into position, gesturing wildly for Richie, and in the moments just as the latches are catching, the tumblers turning, he lets out the biggest, longest, most full-throated dramatic moan he can summon up from his chest.</p><p>The door pauses momentarily in its opening. Eddie lets out another one, just for good measure.</p><p><em>“Ohh, yes,” </em>he shouts, rattling the Barcalounger so it creaks. “Yes!” Wild-eyed, he looks at Richie, whose face is flushed with embarrassed surprise. “C’mon, Casanova, it’s not just me in here,” he hisses quietly.</p><p>Richie seems to shake himself out of it. “Y-yeah!” he stammers. “Yeah, I’m— I’m nailin’ you!”</p><p>Eyes clenching shut, Eddie bites down on the frustration. This man does a comedy sketch show for a living and he can’t fuckin’ act. “Yeah, you are!”</p><p>“I’m humpin’ you good!”</p><p>“You’re <em>fucking </em>me, actually!”</p><p>“That’s the word!”</p><p>“So I know I’m interrupting…”</p><p>They both stop, as if they were actually caught in the act. As if the act wasn’t meant to have an audience in the first place.</p><p>Well. Realism, at least.</p><p>Patrick is standing in the kitchen, regarding them coolly. He appears completely unfazed, which, not ideal, but still Eddie scrambles to cover them with the blanket he oh-so-cleverly set up beforehand. There shouldn’t be anything visible, anyway, since Richie didn’t think he could get it up to fuck in front of a squirrel-strangler, <em>apparently</em>, but it’s the gesture that counts.</p><p>“Patrick!” Eddie exclaims, trying his hardest to sound like this is a surprise and not the entire point of them pretending to fuck in the living room.</p><p>“Oh, golly,” Richie exclaims, as well, and Eddie nearly smacks him.</p><p>Patrick, however, pays them little mind. He simply begins to fiddle with his sparse keychain and says, “Figured I oughta tell you I’m moving out.”</p><p>Eddie blinks, propping himself up on his elbow. “H-huh?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Patrick says, extricating his key from the ring and setting it on the counter with a clack. “All my stuff’s already moved out. I just came here to drop off the key.”</p><p>“W-what!?” Eddie gasps, scrambling to sit upright in the chair. He whips his head toward the closed door of Patrick’s room. He’s never looked in there because he was afraid to see, like, eight headless mannequins or something, but if he had just opened the door… </p><p>“Yup,” Patrick drawls, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I know you were kinda hung out to dry ’cause a’ this guy moving out, and it was a good price for the location, so I tried to make it work, but I just don’t think it’s a good fit.”</p><p>Annoyance spikes through Eddie. <em>This </em>guy—fish-killer, squirrel-eater—can’t live with <em>Eddie</em>? He glances at Richie, and he looks similarly flabbergasted. “Excuse me!?” Eddie demands, suddenly indignant. “Why the hell not?”</p><p>“Was it because he makes you wash the silverware?” Richie asks, and Eddie really does smack him this time.</p><p>Smirking, Patrick shrugs those lanky, slouching shoulders. “Nah, man. All that was fine. I don’t like my shit to be touched, either. In fact, I consider myself a pretty easygoing roommate, but… I just can’t live with someone who watches <em>Baywatch</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>years later, when patrick is on trial for serial murder, eddie will scream, "i knew it!!!!" endlessly at every possible opportunity.</p><p>thanks again to @camerasparring for the fic request!! it was so fun. ily &lt;3</p><p>i’m <a href="https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_">@tempestbreak_</a> on twitter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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